ARDA GÜLEÇ

MAUR
ICARD
O
I
GALATASARAY
GENERAL
CAREER
Mauro Icardi is an Argentine striker who plays for Turkish Süper Lig club
Galatasaray.
Previously, he played for Sampdoria and Inter Milan in Italy, before
making a €60million move to Paris St Germain.
He has won Ligue 1 and the Coupe de France with PSG twice, and the
Super Lig with Galatasaray.
In Italy he was picked for the Serie A team of the year twice and was also
named the league's footballer of the year in 2018.
He was also top scorer in Serie A on two separate occasions.
EARLY
CAREER
Icardi was born in Rosario, Argentina, but moved to the Canary Islands at a young age to
pursue his dreams to be a succesful football player.
After his highly successful spell at Vecindario in Gran Canaria, Barcelona won the fight
against bitter rivals Real Madrid to secure the young Icardi's services as an academy
player.

Icardi's decision to move to Barcelona seemingly paid dividends as he was successful at

Sampdoria.

He scored 10 Serie A goals in 31 appearances for them during the 2012/13 season,
although he was still a teenager at the time. He really was gifted and he was noticed by the
biggest teams in Italy.

After his success at Sampdoria, Inter Milan signed Icardi for a reported fee of €6.5million
for 50% registration rights.

Icardi enjoyed an incredible 2016/17 season with 24 league goals in 34 matches, and he
was even more prolific in 2017/18 with 29 strikes in as many games. However, 2018/19
proved to be a less than ideal season for him.
GALATASARA
Y
Conflict between Inter and Icardi's camp - particularly his wife and agent, Wanda Nara led
to him being stripped of the captaincy in February 2019.
Icardi did not travel with the team to the subsequent UEFA Europa League game against
Rapid Vienna.
He was called up for Vienna but he did not want to be there.
Things around him have disturbed him and the team he captained.
He left Inter as a 2 times Serie A top scorer and joined PSG on loan in 2019.

After 3 dissapointing years at PSG, Icardi joined Turkish giants Galatasaray on loan for
the 2022/23 season and his poor performance at PSG never let him down.
It was the first of many for his new side, and he ended the season with 23 goals from 26
appearances across all competitions, as Galatasaray won their 23rd league title.
He was also named in the Super Lig's team of the season.
He got loved by all the Galatasaray fans with his goals in the critical matches on the road
of the 23rd championship of Galatasaray.
Then, Icardi made the move to Galatasaray permanent in the summer of 2023 for a fee of
around €10million.
THIS SEASON
Icardi, who was previously fit and had a steady good performance last season, is currently
struggling with obesity.

He could score not only mesmerising headers, difficult goals, match winners but also
amazing assists.

He used to score in derby matches, move faster and he used to be more agile. But now he
is overweight which is sad. He is ghosting Champions League games, can’t score any
goals in the international arena.

He could score just 2 goals, 1 is from a penalty, and had no assists.

I wish he was as fit and scorer as he was in the last season. And I hope he will.