ENES ÜNAL LaLiga Top Player Profile
Enes Unal LaLiga Football Career
It’s no surprise that Enes Ünal remains to be Getafe’s main man up front, given the fact that the 2021-22 season was the best of his young career, and continues to be trusted by their manager Quique Sanchez Flores as the Madrid outfit are keen to retain their LaLiga status.
Early career in Bursaspor
His footballing career began in his native Turkey, where his father had been a legendary fixture for Bursaspor as a centre-half. He also has a younger brother who is now playing in the lower level of Turkish football.
He made his professional debut in a Europa League qualifier as a substitute in August 2013, and towards the end of the same month, became the then-youngest goalscorer in Süper Lig history (since broken) with his late equalizer against Galatasaray, having been a month younger than the previous holder Batuhan Karadeniz of Besiktas.
Unal had played in 54 matches for his hometown club, and only found the net seven times.
Out on Loan from City
Manchester City came in to snap him up in 2015, but never played a single fixture in all competitions for the Premier League side, having spent his two seasons on loan to Belgium’s Genk, then to Dutch sides NAC Breda and Twente.
In his stint with the Eredivisie outfit in 2016-17, he led the club with 19 goals in all competitions as Twente secured a seventh-place finish.
Moving to Villarreal, out on loan
That prompted Villarreal to sign him for a five-year deal, but the Tukish marksman struggled in El Madrigal, as he scored just five goals in two separate stints in his first full season with the club, which was then sandwiched by his emergency spell for Levante in which he scored just once in La Liga.
He then spent his next two seasons out on loan to Real Valladolid, yet his scoring struggles remain as he only hit 14 goals in 71 appearances.
Gamble paid off by Getafe
Pepe Bordalas took Unal to Getafe in 2020, as they try to find solutions to stay in La Liga.
On his first full-season, Unal scored 5 goals (4 in La Liga) as the club’s joint-second leading scorer with Jaime Mata, one behind Ángel who eventually left in 2021.
The following season saw him return to his Twente form, despite the midseason change of coaches from Michel to Quique Sanchez Flores. Having failed to score in his first ten matches of the campaign, he went into a tear for the rest of the season as he scored 16 goals to ensure their La Liga status with a 15th-placed finish.
His exploits included an early strike to defeat eventual champions Real Madrid on Week 19,
