Muzzy Izzet

Clubs

Leicester City (1996 to 2004), Birmingham City (2004 to 2006)

Premier League

248 appearances, 34 goals

Honours

League Cup 1997 and 2000, World Cup third place 2002

International

Turkey, 9 caps

Fantasy price

£7.0m in 2003/04

Why we won't forget

Muzzy Izzet was the first Turkish player to appear in the Premier League. He won two League Cups and played in a World Cup semi-final, yet outside Leicester he is probably most remembered for having one of the great names in English football.

How he arrived

Izzet was born in Mile End in October 1974 to a Turkish Cypriot father and an English mother. He signed for Chelsea as a schoolboy but spent three years there without making a first-team appearance.

In March 1996 O'Neill took him on loan to Leicester, then pushing for the First Division play-offs. He went straight into the side, and when Steve Claridge's late winner beat Crystal Palace in the play-off final, the move was made permanent for £800,000.

His Premier League debut that August made him the competition's first Turkish player. Leicester finished ninth and won the League Cup, and Izzet settled into a midfield partnership with Neil Lennon that held together for years. Lennon broke up play; Izzet's job was to get forward, create and score.

The moment

Stamford Bridge in September 2000, against the club that had let him go.

Eight minutes in, Lennon crossed and Izzet headed past Carlo Cudicini. Stan Collymore added a second late on, and the 2-0 win kept Peter Taylor's unbeaten Leicester on course for the top of the table, where they sat that October.

He had form for it. In September 1999 he was the Premier League's Player of the Month, during what the club regards as the best scoring run of his career.

Why he's overlooked

He never played for England. He qualified for Turkey through his father, made his debut at Euro 2000 against Sweden, and won nine caps. At the 2002 World Cup his only appearance was as a substitute in the 1-0 semi-final defeat to Brazil, so a bronze medal came with very little screen time.

He also stayed when others moved on. West Ham and Middlesbrough were interested, and he handed in a transfer request in 2001, but he was still there for relegation in 2002, administration and promotion back in 2003. In 2003/04 he had more Premier League assists than anyone, setting up 14 of Leicester's 48 league goals, and they went down anyway.

With the club unable to pay his wages, he joined Birmingham on a free in June 2004. He scored once, an equaliser at Bolton, and in the next match a challenge from Newcastle's Olivier Bernard damaged his knee. He barely played again and retired in June 2006, aged 31.

Why the streets won't forget

O'Neill called him "one of the finest players ever to don a Leicester City shirt", and the numbers back him up: 319 games and 47 goals for the club, four straight top-half finishes, three League Cup finals in four years. His 34 Premier League goals and 248 appearances were still the most by a Turkish player when Cenk Tosun arrived at Everton in 2018.

Leicester fans also remember the one that wasn't in the Premier League: an overhead kick into the top corner at Grimsby in November 2002, still talked about as one of the best goals in the club's history. In Istanbul, a bronze statue of Turkey's 2002 World Cup squad has him in it too.

He now runs a football academy in Leicester with his old teammate Steve Walsh.

Want him in your retro fantasy football team for 2003/04? He'll cost you £7.0m.