It was while scrolling through comments underneath an Instagram post on 20 July last year that the seed of an idea planted in the mind of Kerem Akturkoglu.
Akturkoglu, a 23-year-old Turkish winger, had shared a picture of himself on a plane about to take off for the Netherlands to play PSV Eindhoven in a Champions League playoff, wearing a pair of circular framed glasses and the maroon and gold of his football club, Galatasaray, to his near 200,000 followers.
His phone began buzzing with hundreds of comments, many calling him “Harry Potter” or “Kerem Potter”, accompanied with wand emojis and the lightning emoji, referencing the distinguishing scar on the forehead of Harry Potter, the protagonist of JK Rowling’s series that has sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.
Every time Akturkoglu posted after that – the usual pictures footballers post on social media: playing in a game, training, celebrating – among the thousands of comments would be lightning and wand emojis, and more Kerem Potter references.
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And the similarities between a young Turkish footballer and the most famous wizard on the planet were a wonderful coincidence, a marvellous quirk of fate too hard to ignore. Not only does Akturkoglu look quite like Harry Potter and is similarly small and sleight, it so happens that he plays in the same colours as Harry Potter’s Gryffindor, shares the same No 7 jersey that Harry Potter wears playing quidditch, the book’s fictional sport involving flying broomsticks and tiny balls with wings.
Five months later, Akturkoglu decided to have some fun and posted a picture of himself training in the rain accompanied by a wand emoji. Soon he started adding wand emojis to more posts and on 25 December sent his new Harry Potter football fans into a frenzy when he scored against Fenerbahce and unveiled his “Expelliarmus” celebration – the disarming charm that is the most commonly used spell in Rowling’s books – wheeling away and waving an imaginary wand. Not long afterwards, television commentators picked up on it and started referring to him as “the magician” or Kerem Potter.
And, just like Harry Potter on a broomstick, Akturkoglu’s following soared. When football’s Harry Potter posted a video of himself practising free kicks it was viewed more than a million times. By the time he scored against Besiktas on 14 March his Expelliarmus celebration post was liked almost half a million times and prompted an outpouring of more than 5,000 comments, most of them including Harry Potter references.
Now he has almost a million followers who go wild every time he refers to the “Wizarding World”. Parents of young fans have even contacted him on social media sharing pictures of their children in Gryffindor quidditch jerseys, and he has received a Gryffindor quidditch kit with Kerem on the back.
Recently he shared a cartoon image of Kerem Potter holding a quaffle, the football-sized misshapen ball used in quidditch, with the same white snowy owl as Harry Potter’s pet Hedwig on his elbow and in the background Galatasaray’s Nef Stadium next to Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry. The ultimate Harry Potter football fan fiction. Underneath, commenters compared him to Lionel Messi.
???? Expelliarmus ????
— Galatasaray SK (@GalatasaraySK) December 26, 2021@keremakturkoglu pic.twitter.com/XNB3aQxM6k
In Turkey, they refer to Akturkoglu as Harry Potter so often that sometimes he forgets his name isn’t Harry or Kerem Potter. Not that he minds: he is a huge fan of the books and likes the idea of bringing magic to the football pitch.
And his story – and skill on the pitch – is spreading far and wide. When Barcelona hosted Galatasaray in the first leg of their Europa League tie in early March, Akturkoglu featured in a double-page spread in Marca, the popular Spanish daily sports newspaper, headlined “Kerem Potter”. Before the match Xavi, the Barcelona manager, picked out Akturkoglu as a player who they would take special precautions to defend against: “Galatasaray have players with talents that surprise me individually, like Kerem Akturkoglu.” High praise indeed.
His performances have not gone unnoticed in England, either, where Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Brentford and Wolves are all purported to be monitoring his situation.
His contract at Galatasaray has four years remaining and, like with his unconventional route to the top of Turkish football, Akturkoglu will prioritise games over reputation. He played in the youth teams of Istanbul Basaksehir, the Turkish top-flight side, as a teenager, but even though he featured for their under-21s early he was itching to play senior football, believing it was the quickest way to develop, and aged 18 made the decision to plunge down the Turkish pyramid for real action.
In Turkey, training compensation for youth players must be paid to clubs in the top three divisions – the Super Lig, the First League and Second League – so in 2018 Akturkoglu dropped to the Third League, or fourth tier, signing for Karacabey Belediyespor.
Then he started climbing the ladder. After a strong season, he moved to 24 Erzincanspor, where he was top scorer with 17 goals as they won the Third League title.
The season included an impressive performance against Besiktas in the Turkish Cup and his availability on a free transfer gave him the pick of Turkey’s largest and best clubs.
He chose Galatasaray – not for Gryffindor’s colours but because at the time they had Turkish legend Fatih Terim in charge. This season, playing on the left wing, he has 11 goals and nine assists in 44 appearances for his club and has become a regular in the Turkey national team.
It may interest Premier League clubs that he speaks English as well as Turkish. And that Kerem Potter is planning a trip to Watford in the summer… for a tour of the Harry Potter studio.
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