10 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Giresunspor will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcos Aguirre has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ontivero is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Joel Sacks was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ontivero is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Joel Sacks was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadLucas Ontivero falls out with a teammate over standards
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad5 Oct 2026
14 new faces, and Giresunspor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Joel Sacks was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 114th minute. Ankaragucu will replay every second of the added time for a week.
24 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Efe Salih Oksal is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ontivero is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ontivero is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 22 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Giresunspor and Galatasaray, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Şahin Dik falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.