As of mid-November 2026, Arda Güler is one of the best young attacking players in the world, and anyone still filing him under "promising" is working off an old scouting report.
Start with the thing people actually argue about: the goals. The complaint is that he doesn't score often, that he lives off the occasional screamer. Look at the screamers. On March 14, 2026, he scored from inside his own half against Elche, a lob from 68.6 meters in the 89th minute of a 4-1 win, later named La Liga's goal of the 2025-26 season. Álvaro Arbeloa called it "a work of art." At the 2026 World Cup he scored Turkey's first goal of the tournament against the USA and became the youngest player to score for Turkey at a World Cup. On November 12, 2026, against Belgium, he bent a free kick from around 30 yards into the top corner with his left foot. Turkey lost that one, but the goal was still the best thing anyone did on the pitch.
Güler is a creator who scores goals most forwards never manage once. As of November 13, 2026, roughly a third of the way through the La Liga season, he had 4 goals and 6 assists in 14 club appearances, with his league work sitting around three goals and four assists. The assists are the tell. He runs games and finishes some of them with the kind of strike that ends up on a loop for a decade.
He's doing it in Real Madrid's actual first team. In the Clásico at the Camp Nou on October 25, 2026, Madrid won 2-1 away, and while Güler didn't score or assist, he was directly involved in the winning goal. He earned those minutes in that fixture.
Credit him first. The talent is his, and so is the nerve to try a 68-meter lob in the 89th minute. This breakout was built. Under Carlo Ancelotti he barely scraped 1,500 minutes across competitions and still produced 14 goal contributions. It took Xabi Alonso to build him a role, advanced and central, where his touch and vision dictate play instead of fighting for scraps behind Bellingham, Mbappé and Vinícius. Earlier in his Alonso tenure, the manager compared him to Özil and Guti. When your own manager reaches for two of the club's great midfielders to describe you, the debate is more or less settled.
Then there's the number that makes everyone wince. Real Madrid signed him from Fenerbahçe in 2023 for €20 million plus up to €10 million in add-ons. By his 100th appearance for the club he had 15 goals and 23 assists and a trophy case holding La Liga, the Champions League, the Spanish Super Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Intercontinental Cup. Twenty-one years old. That's daylight robbery.
Worth qualifying with the calendar: the season is a third old and the table moves weekly. As of matchday 12, Madrid sat second behind Barcelona by a few points, and that gap will look different by the time you read this. The goal and assist tallies will climb too. None of that changes the verdict.
The case against him is a year out of date, built on complaints about a deeper role he didn't want and defensive lapses from a season that's already over. He's past it. Stop treating a player with a World Cup goal, a goal of the season, and a trophy haul most pros retire without as a prospect you're still waiting on.
