Eray Cömert

Eray Ervin Cömert (born 4 February 1998) is a Swiss professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Ligue 1 club Nantes, on loan from Valencia.

He also plays for the Switzerland national team.

Cömert started his youth football with Concordia Basel.

In 2009, he transferred to the youth system of Basel advancing regularly through the ranks.

In summer 2014, he advanced to their U-18 team under coach Raphael Wicky, playing more than half of the games that season and winning the Swiss U-18 Cup.

In the following season, he started with the U-18 team and during the winter break advanced to their U-21 team, who played in the Promotion League the third highest tier in the Swiss football league system.

Just a few months later, Basel's first team secured the Swiss championship with the 2–1 victory over Sion.

Basel's head coach Urs Fischer had nominated Cömert as substitute for that match and nominated him into the starting eleven for each of the last five games of the season.

He played his domestic league debut for the club in the away game in the Letzigrund on 7 May 2016 as Basel won 3–2 against Zürich.

For their 2016–17 season, Cömert trained with the first team but played for the U-21 team to gain playing experience.

He played in nine test games for the first team and had two 90-minute appearances for them in that season's Swiss Cup.

At the end of Basel's 2016–17 season, the team won the championship.

They also won the 2016–17 Swiss Cup, defeating Sion 3–0 in the final, which meant they had won the double.

On 8 March 2017, Basel announced that they were loaning out Cömert to Lugano, until the end of the 2016–17 Swiss Super League season, so that he could gain first team playing experience.

He played the last 12 Matches of the season, each over the full 90 minutes and helped the team to avoid relegation.

After the loan period he returned to his club of origin, but on 7 July Basel announced that they were loaning Cömert out to Sion, for the 2017–18 Super League season.

However, in his very first game he injured his shoulder and missed the rest of the matches in that year.

He returned in the new year, but after just ten games the injury reoccured and he missed the rest of the season.

After the loan period, in July 2018, Cömert again returned to Basel.

But, the Basel's 2018–19 season started badly.

Already in the preparation games things went wrong and as the team started their league season they lost the first home game against St. Gallen.

Head coach Raphaël Wicky was immediately replaced by Marcel Koller.

But things were not much better, Basel ended the league season in second position, with a Massiv 20 points residue behind champions Young Boys.

Nevertheless, Basel won the Swiss Cup in the 2018–19 season.

It was the 1st leg of the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League play-off round and it was the winning goal of the match as Basel won 3–2 against Apollon Limassol.

He scored his first domestic league goal for his team in the away game in the Swissporarena on 25 November 2018.

It was the equaliser in the fifth minute of added time as Basel played a 1–1 draw with Luzern.

This season was the breakthrough for the central defender.

Cömert totaled 31 appearances, 24 League, two in the Cup and five in the UEFA competitions (Champions League and Europa League. He scored those afore mentioned two goals in these matches.

The final was held on 19 May 2019 in the Stade de Suisse Wankdorf Bern against Thun.

Striker Albian Ajeti scored the first goal, Fabian Frei the second for Basel, then Dejan Sorgić netted a goal for Thun, but the end result was 2–1 for Basel.

Cömert scored his first goal for his team in the home game in the St. Jakob-Park on 23 August.

Marcel Koller remained FCB first team manager for their 2019–20 season.

The season started out well, despite the fact that Basel lost their first home game at the St. Jakob-Park, after 11 rounds they were leading the table having won eight of these rounds.

There after, however, they were defeated in three consecutive away games and thus slipped to second position in the table before the winter break.

At the start of the second half of season the team suffered two straight off defeats against reigning Swiss champions Young Boys and the team St. Gallen who then rose to the top of the league table.

Following a home defeat against bottom of the table Thun, Basel lost contact to the top two teams and never caught up with them again.

All matches in Switzerland between 28 February and end of May were postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Switzerland.

Basel ended the season in third position.

In the 2019–20 Swiss Cup Basel advanced to the final, but here they were defeated 2–1 by Young Boys.