The first rule of football in the internet age is ‘If a meme gets big enough, someone has turned it into a celebration’.
We saw it with Jamie Vardy’s mannequin challenge efforts for England. We saw it with Michail Antonio’s tribute to that Homer Simpson clip. And now we’ve seen it more and more with the Salt Bae celebration.
Turkish international midfielder Hakan Çalhanoğlu pulled it out earlier in the season, but it has now made its way to the Football League.
#saltbae 💦🔥😁😉🇹🇷🇹🇷 #ÖmerToprak @nusr_ett pic.twitter.com/jk1yTid87k
— Hakan Çalhanoğlu (@hakanc10) January 23, 2017
For anyone unfamiliar with ‘Salt Bae’, he’s a Turkish chef who went viral for the flourish with which he sprinkled salt onto meat, and if you think that’s weird then we can come up with plenty of weirder examples of people becoming memes.
The chef, whose real name is Nusret Gökçe, is opening a restaurant in the UK, while his recent encounter with Leonardo DiCaprio got everyone talking.
DiCaprio and Çalhanoğlu aren’t his only fans, though. Walsall midfielder Erhun Oztumer, nicknamed the ‘Turkish Messi’, scored his 12th goal of the current League 1 campaign in some style against Bolton.
He attempted to celebrate by paying tribute to the chef du jour, only to be cut off mid-salting.
The Turkish Messi strikes again! 🇹🇷 @Erhun_A_Oztumer marks his long range strike for @WFCOfficial with a 'salt bae' celebration. pic.twitter.com/aYAkJfImVz
— Channel 5 Sport (@Channel5Sport) February 11, 2017
Now, we’re not saying his teammates jinxed themselves by cutting short the celebration, but that fourth-minute opener was met by four unanswered goals from the home side.
Victory would have left the Saddlers just two points off the play-off places, but instead they find themselves down in 12th after a ninth league defeat of the season.
Catch up with this week’s episode of 888sport Football Friday Live
