3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ronaldo 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thalis. 2‑0 against Serikspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Zé Vitor was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Ufuk Kabak could afford to be generous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Esenler Erokspor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ronaldo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Birkan Tetik 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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Esenler Erokspor know it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Esenler Erokspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Ronaldo 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Guélor Kanga was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ufuk Kabak was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Esenler Erokspor dressing room was either.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Pendikspor will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Esenler Erokspor were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Anísio Cabral, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 9.47
A mark of 9.47 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Anísio Cabral is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Esenler Erokspor told Thalis something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Ufuk Kabak could afford to be generous.
He laid on 3 and scored none, and would have been mildly offended to be asked why. The scorers get the headlines; the man who made them gets the respect of everybody who understood the match.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Alper Karaman
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esenler Erokspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Esenler Erokspor asked and Basaksehir said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ertuğrul Çetin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Esenler Erokspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Erzurumspor have kept their man, and Esenler Erokspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ertuğrul Çetin is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Guélor Kanga 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alper Karaman 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.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
Transfer targetsA loan move for Silas Prüfrock is in the works
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Thalis has, at Esenler Erokspor, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ertuğrul Çetin and Esenler Erokspor agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Jack 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.
Esenler Erokspor asked and Fenerbahce said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mustafa Kokcu is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alper Sahin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Salih Akgun is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
The dugoutErtuğrul Çetin asks for a word with the manager