Completely black-painted face, white beard and hair, light eyes that pierce the screen. When the 2026 World Cup cameras focused on him in the stands at BC Place in Vancouver on June 13, during Turkey’s opener against Australia, half the world asked the same thing: who the hell is that man? 🌍
His name is Necdet Ölçerman, although in Turkey everyone knows him as “Udi Neco”. It is not an improvised look for the World Cup or a carnival costume: it is an identity he has spent years refining match after match at Tüpraş Stadyumu in Istanbul, where he is a familiar figure in the Beşiktaş stands. The colors — black and white — are exactly those of the club. The image he projects has a name of its own: the Black Bull, a symbol of strength and resilience that Neco turned into his football alter ego. Before each match he spends several hours painting himself and getting ready. It is not vanity: it is ritual. 🐂🖤
Outside the stands, Necdet is a renowned jeweler in Turkey and at some point in his life he served in the National Gendarmerie. A man of different worlds who found in football the stage on which to build something no commentator can ignore. Turkey was eliminated in the group stage, but “Udi Neco” has already won his own World Cup. 🏆