Lefter: The Greek who became Turkey’s football legend amid loss and pogrom

“In my country, I’m called a Greek seed; here, a Turkish seed,” says Lefter Kucukandonyadis, a legendary Turkish-Greek footballer, in a new movie dedicated to his memory.

Kucukandonyadis said those words following a national football match in Athens, where he was insulted and pelted with vegetables by his Greek brethren because he represented Turkey against Greece.

He had refused to play for the Greek national team back then, saying, he wouldn't play against his friends.

“Lefter: The Story of the Ordinarius” is a Netflix production that follows the footballer’s career from the 1940s to the 1960s, while also exposing Turkey’s difficult past regarding its minorities. It highlights the ontological choices and sacrifices non-Muslim citizens were compelled to make.

In the movie, he says Athens is just like Istanbul and Greeks living in Greece are just like those in Turkey. Yet, he doesn’t feel welcome there.

“You can’t get a crow used to a rose garden, nor a nightingale to a garbage dump,” he reflects.

After playing against the Greek national team and scoring twice, he sincerely expresses his feelings: “I represented my nation against my own race.”

Turkish people are deeply passionate about football and often idolise their players. Lefter became one of them, a legend, almost a demigod on the pitch, despite his marginalised Greek identity.

Lefter’s name is synonymous with Fenerbahce Football Club, part of the “Big Three” with Galatasaray and Besiktas. His name is even mentioned in the club’s official anthem. When he joined in 1947, he helped lead Fenerbahce to numerous championship titles, becoming the top Turkish scorer several times. His ability to command the ball and his exceptional dribbling earned him the nickname Ordinarius, meaning “the professor”.

Legendary player Can Bartu, who played alongside him, once described Lefter in an interview: “He was a team on his own. When he played well, no opponent could stop him. He would put the ball wherever he wanted. His free kicks and penalties were unstoppable. He would mock his rival.”

He added: “Without a doubt, Lefter is the greatest footballer Turkey has ever produced.”

'I like Lefter, but I don’t like Lefters'

- Former Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Inonu

But more than his success on the field, which made him one of the first Turkish footballers to play in Europe for clubs such as ACF Fiorentina in Italy and OGC Nice in France, Lefter’s personal story is filled with contradictions and tragedies that expose issues modern Turkey still grapples with. And the lead actor Erdem Kaynarca succeeds in bringing those emotions into life with his performance. 

Born into a Greek fisherman’s family on Buyukada, one of Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands, in 1924, Lefter was truly a child of the new Turkish Republic, founded two years earlier after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Despite the population exchange between Turkey and Greece, over 100,000 Greeks still lived in Istanbul, a significant number in a city of 1.5 million. The city was cosmopolitan by modern standards. In the 1940s, Jews and Armenians were also prominent in the country’s entertainment, business and sports sectors.

This environment gave Lefter a chance to prove himself. Playing at Taksim Stadium, he caught the attention of Onnik Manukyan, one of the Armenian founders of Taksim Football Club.

The movie is set against the backdrop of World War Two, which brought the first major blow to Turkey’s minorities through the Wealth Tax, a one-off levy that disproportionately targeted non-Muslim communities such as Armenians, Greeks and Jews. Those unable to pay were sent to labour camps in Eastern Anatolia, resulting in a transfer of wealth from non-Muslims to Muslims.

Lefter’s father, Hristo, a poor fisherman, was exempted from the tax because he had nothing to give. But his relatives were not so fortunate, and many were forced to leave the country. Lefter painfully realised that he and his family had been left all alone. Years later, in the final days of his life, he recounted those difficult times so movingly that he asked journalist Nebil Ozgenturk, who was filming his documentary, to turn off the camera.

Painful memories

Director Can Ulkay doesn’t shy away from portraying these painful memories, making it clear that Lefter’s past was not just a dream filled with glory but also one marked by deep loss. In the film, Lefter’s wealthy friend Dimitri, from a prominent Greek family on Buyukada, bids him farewell after the government seizes their mansion, forcing them into exile, possibly to a labour camp.

The incident leaves Lefter conflicted. A law-abiding citizen who loves his country, he must make extra sacrifices to be treated as an equal. During World War Two, he voluntarily enlisted for military service for several years, pausing his career just as it was about to flourish and wasting some of his best years playing in the army’s football tournaments.

After his return as a star player, having played abroad and then coming back to his “only love”, Fenerbahce, Lefter endured another ordeal shared by many in his community.

On 6–7 September 1955, following false reports of a bombing at Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s birthplace in Thessaloniki, violent attacks erupted in Istanbul against religious minorities. To this day, it remains unclear whether the pogrom was state-organised.

Although the news proved false, the homes and businesses of many Greek, Armenian and Jewish citizens were looted, burned, and destroyed throughout Istanbul and the Princes’ Islands in three days of unrest. Official reports state that three people were killed, thirty injured, seventy-three churches, one synagogue, eight chapels, two monasteries, and 5,583 homes and businesses, 3,584 of them Greek, were damaged or destroyed.

'Fifteen days ago, when I scored a goal, they carried me on their shoulders. On that fateful night, I was met with stones and paint cans'

- Lefter Kucukandonyadis

During the pogrom, Lefter also faced an attack at his home in Buyukada. After securing his wife and daughters’ safety, he stood armed behind the door as his house was stoned, splashed with paint, and defaced with insults. The mob shouted, “Hit that infidel!”

Lefter recognised, by voice and by occasional glimpses, many of his attackers, people he knew personally, but he never revealed their names.

“Fifteen days ago, when I scored a goal, they carried me on their shoulders. On that fateful night, I was met with stones and paint cans. Worst of all, the children I used to give pocket money to attacked my home. My daughters were little - they tried to kill them,” he later recalled.

When Fenerbahce fans in Kadikoy heard what happened, they rushed by boat to Buyukada and guarded his home.

Asked later how he felt during those days, he said simply: “I cried for days, just cried.”

Years later, he told Ozgenturk that he no longer wanted to discuss those events on camera.

“Don’t ask me about these things; you’ll get me into trouble. Yes, they exiled us, and they broke my father’s heart. I still cry when I remember what he told me," he recalled.

"My father was a poor man. What they did on September 6–7 … wasn’t it shameful? It shouldn’t have happened. There’s nothing more to talk about.”

Expulsions and departure

Even after the pogrom, the Greek population in Istanbul didn’t immediately vanish. The Netflix film doesn’t cover later years, but understanding this context helps explain the atmosphere of the time.

In 1964, amid rising tensions between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus, where Turkish Cypriots were under attack, the Turkish government decided to expel Greeks who had been permitted to reside in Turkey under a 1930 bilateral agreement.

In 1955, Istanbul’s Greek population was around 105,000. By 1965, after the expulsions and voluntary departures, that number had dropped to 30,000.

The 1960s were also difficult for Lefter. Being a Turkish citizen, he was allowed to stay. Yet, when someone reminded Prime Minister Ismet Inonu of Lefter’s talent and asked, “Do you like Lefter?” Inonu famously replied: “I like Lefter, but I don’t like Lefters.”

Yet he was never forgotten. After his death in 2012 in Istanbul, the Turkish Football Federation declared that the 2018–19 Super League season would be named after him: the Lefter Kucukandonyadis Season.