Veli Kavlak

Veli Kavlak — Biography

Vienna is where Veli Kavlak came into the world on 3 November 1988, the child of Turkish immigrants, and where his path as a defensive midfielder began at Post SV Wien before Rapid Wien's academy picked him up. Promotion to the senior squad followed in 2005, and he collected a pair of Austrian championship medals before a 2011 move took him to Beşiktaş, where he spent close to a decade as a regular in midfield, lifted the Süper Lig trophy twice, and dealt with a series of shoulder problems along the way; he eventually parted with the club in 2018. On the international stage he wore the Austrian jersey 31 times, scoring a single goal in a fixture against Turkey, the country of his family's roots. Retirement from playing led him into coaching roles, most recently as head of Beşiktaş's U-19 squad, a post he left in December 2025. Two months later, in January 2026, the Turkish federation put him in charge of its U-18 national side, a job he stepped down from that July after roughly half a year.