Tanju Çolak


Tanju Çolak is a retired Turkish footballer, who played as a striker.

Club career

He made his debut for Samsun Yolspor. From there he was transferred to Samsunspor in 1981 where he was the top scorer in both the 1985–86 and 1986–87 seasons. Çolak then moved to Galatasaray in the end of 1986–87 season. He was the top scorer in Europe with 39 goals in the 1987–88 season. At the same time, he was awarded the European Golden Boot given by France Football. He is the only Turkish footballer to date to win this award. Çolak became the top scorer again in the 1991–92 season, and transferred to Fenerbahçe at the end of the season.
He had a lifetime total of 240 goals and took over the title of top goal scorer in the Turkish Super League by breaking the legendary record of Metin Oktay. He had scored the most goal with 240 goals at only 9 seasons, which were 1982–83 and between the 1985–93 seasons. His record was broken by Hakan Şükür in 2007–08 season after 17 seasons.

International career

Çolak played for the Turkish national team, where he was capped 31 time, scoring 9 goals.
Çolak earned the Golden Shoe in Europe during his career at Galatasaray and is the only Turkish player to achieve this.

Personal life

Tanju's younger brother, Yücel Çolak also was a professional footballer.
In January 1994, he began a prison sentence of four years and eight months for illegally smuggling a Mercedes-Benz car into Ankara.
He was deputy candidate of Beylikdüzü municipality for MHP in 2009, but wasn't elected.
He was a Justice and Development Party candidate to the Turkish Parliament elections which was held in June 12th, 2011

Honours

Club

;Galatasaray SK