My Football Journey: The Road to 2026 is a series following some of the most exciting young footballers in the world during a key moment in their careers.
It will follow the highs, the setbacks, and the hard work they and their clubs are putting in, and show how different their journeys are as they dream of making it to the 2026 World Cup.
Lionel Messi might not remember the 2010 World Cup too fondly, but the Argentinian’s performances in it left a lasting impression on future Besiktas midfielder Demir Ege Tiknaz. Six years old when the tournament took place in South Africa, Tiknaz watched the action on television at his home in the Turkish city of Istanbul. He was in awe of what he saw Messi doing.
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“What took my attention was his skills with the ball,” Tiknaz tells The Athletic. “His dribbling, his relation with the ball, his abilities and things he was doing with the ball. I was like, ‘Wow’. I was so surprised watching him doing such things so easily.”
That’s the earliest memory a now 18-year-old Tiknaz has of watching football. From that summer onwards, all he could think about was: “How a footballer could play football that amazing.”
“That was the starting point,” he says. “The influence. After that, my story just started.”
Tiknaz is speaking to The Athletic from the Besiktas training ground, having signed professional terms with the Istanbul club in September.
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He’s currently working his way back to fitness after a knee ligament injury in April — it’s been a long last six months for the youngster, who says it was mentally tough to miss so much football. He knows it will pass, though, because he’s been here before.
Two years ago, Tiknaz broke a bone in his lower back. He was just 16 at the time, and that injury could have derailed his burgeoning football career.
“It was difficult to recover and get back to the pitch,” he says. “I couldn’t play football for six or seven months. But after, I started actually raising my level and potential.”
Since then, he has played over 20 times for Besiktas in the under-19s league and scored twice; he made five appearances in the UEFA Youth League last season and in February this year made his debut for Turkey Under-18s.
At times, Tiknaz doubted whether he would be able to return to the level he was at before his injury, but he credits his family (mum, dad and older brother), friends and physiotherapist for helping him through.
Now, he believes that the period he spent out of action was actually transformative in his career: “I never gave up and I worked more than any time, and that helped me actually to develop.
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“That injury changed me. It made me more mature.”
Tiknaz was just nine years old when he was spotted by a Besiktas scout while playing for a local team. Ever since watching Messi in 2010 he’d been asking his father (who had been an amateur player as a teenager) when he could join an academy or sign up to a football course.
“I wanted to learn how football is on the pitch,” he says. “Everyone told my dad, ‘Just give him a chance. Send him to a football academy or football school’, and my dad always said, ‘If he’s good enough they will discover him. No worries, no rush’. And the miracle happened.”
He can still remember the training match that led to the call from Besiktas. “I was ‘megging all the guys on the pitch,” he smiles. “I was really good in that match — it’s my oldest memory on the pitch.”
Tiknaz describes himself as similar in playing style to Sergio Busquets — a player he describes as his “idol” in terms of style, along with Paul Pogba. “A box-to-box midfielder, that was my aim. Now I can say I’m a little bit like Busquets’ style, though I’m taller than him — I am 1.93m (6ft 4in). But I’m kind of a playmaker; regista.
“At the same time I can play No 8, box-to-box, too. I feel good in these positions. I always want to have possession. I’m that kind of a guy.”
That most recent injury did give Tiknaz time to focus on areas where he felt extra work was needed, which means he hopes to return to the pitch as a better, stronger version of himself.
“My upper body was weak,” he says. “So when I could not work with my lower body, I improved my upper body. For tall players, having a good upper body is more difficult. That’s why I worked more to have it.”
Once he received the all-clear to train his lower limbs again, Tiknaz regularly spent nearly six hours per day working to beef up his whole body. “It gives me self-confidence,” he says. “My only motivation is just coming back stronger than before.”
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His aim is to return to the first-team dressing room, where his first two experiences were memorable ones.
Tiknaz was part of the squad for the Turkish Super Cup (an annual Community Shield-style match between the winners of the previous season’s top league and cup competitions) against Antalyaspor in January. Besiktas won on penalties after a 1-1 draw and the teenager watched the drama unfold from the substitutes’ bench.
“The atmosphere was amazing,” he says, as was lifting the trophy — his only title so far.
But that was not his first taste of life with the seniors. That came in the Champions League, when he was an unused substitute for a 2-0 defeat away to Ajax in September last year.
“I was so nervous and anxious,” he says Tiknaz. “But I was really happy to be there as well. Being a part (of it) made me feel so good.
“I had my two friends from the academy with me as well. One is called Berkay (Vardar), who’s still in our senior squad, and the other one, Emirhan Delibas, is on loan at a (Turkish second-tier) team called Goztepe. These two team-mates encouraged me. We encourage each other, actually.”
Tiknaz says he was “really affected” by what he felt and witnessed inside Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena that night with a crowd of over 52,000 on hand, calling it the best atmosphere he’s experienced in football so far. “It was crazy. It’s the same in our stadium as well; thousands of people chanting, singing the same thing — that passion and desire that you can feel as a player. This gives me those feelings.”
But the day he says was perhaps the best he’s had in football came when wearing the shirt of his country.
Tiknaz made his debut for Turkey Under-18s in February, a 2-2 draw with their Lithuania counterparts. “I was called up with my best mate Emirhan Ilkhan – a Torino player right now (after a summer move to Italy from Besiktas),” says Tiknaz. “So I was there with my best friend and really enjoyed it.”
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In a series of four friendlies (two against Lithuania and two against Romania the following month) the pair started together once, in the first meeting with Romania. Tiknaz provided an assist to Ilkhan that put them 2-0 up. It’s that scenario that brings a warm grin to the 18-year-old’s face, calling it one of his best experiences on the pitch so far.
Reaching this point has not been easy. Injuries aside, he describes a teenage life that sounds far from the norm.
“I never had a social life,” he says. “I have two friends outside of football and we are in the same building. Otherwise, all my life is built with the people in football.
“And I never ate the things that I like to eat because I have to take care of my body. I have my own diet and I cannot just eat something different than what is written on my diet. I dedicated all my life to a target and I have no time for other things and other people.”
That target takes various forms. One of his biggest goals is to play in Turkey’s senior team and help them qualify for a World Cup — something they haven’t achieved since he was born in 2004, playing in the sport’s biggest tournament just once (making the semi-finals in 2002) since their only other participation in 1954.
“I also had a dream to play with Messi,” Tiknaz says, “but it seems quite difficult because he’s about to quit in a few years. I have another dream though — that is to play in England, especially in Liverpool if I can.”
He says he wants to “be an example”.
“With my professionalism, with my hard work, with my belief,” he says.
Given the obstacles he has already overcome, that is one target he can probably tick off now.
(Main graphic designed by Eamonn Dalton; photo via Getty Images)
