USMNT’s Haji Wright bags brace in Antalyaspor rout

Fit enough to start again, Wright was in top form for Antalyaspor

A fit-again Haji Wright is just what Antalyaspor needed.

The U.S. men’s national team striker scored twice and added an assist as his side cruised past Kayserispor 4-0 on Saturday.

The win is especially helpful in the extremely tight race to avoid relegation in the Turkish Süper Lig: despite jumping into a tie for ninth place with the victory, Antalyaspor is just five points above the drop zone.

Wright opened the scoring with a classic bit of target man play. First, he checked to the ball to connect with Alassane Ndao, and then spread play over to the left as Kayserispor never got the chance to adjust. Güray Vural’s cross was just out of reach for Ndao, and Bünyamin Balcı’s back-post shot crashed off the post.

Fortunately for Antalyaspor, Wright kept his run going, and the rebound gave him the easy job of just guiding the shot through some chaos and into the back of the net.

Wright then added an assist early in the second half, with some distinctly un-“big lad” play. Throwing a series of moves out near the endline, he put Kayserispor defender Dimitrios Kolovetsios in a blender before teeing Fredy up for a close-range tap-in.

Wright’s dominant performance got an appropriate exclamation point in the 68th minute, as he made it 3-0. Fredy’s incisive ball in behind for Ndao opened the door for the winger to drive in a cross, and despite being 15 yards from goal, Wright powered his header into the bottom corner past a despairing Bilal Bayazit.

Wright among Turkey’s top scorers

The outstanding performance was huge for Antalyaspor, who had to do without Wright (whose 12 goals have him in fourth in the Golden Boot race) for six games due to a thigh muscle strain suffered in early January.

Wright was able to play nine minutes off the bench in Monday’s 3-1 loss at Kasimpasa, a game in which Antalyaspor scored just their second goal in their previous 492 minutes of play.

However, Wright was fit to play 71 minutes against Kayserispor, and based on the result, Antalyaspor couldn’t have been happier to have him back.

It’s not clear whether Wright has a long-term future at the club though. Back in January, the team’s vice president Emrah Celik said they’d had talks with eight teams over a possible winter transfer, and given that Wright just keeps scoring, that move seems more likely to materialize this summer.

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