Marked for Pedrinho
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Dec 2026
43 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Konyaspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.10, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market21 Dec 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
At 36 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.19, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A season average of 7.36 with 13 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market21 Dec 2026
Bahia are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Konyaspor will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Match19 Dec 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Jackson Muleka’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Konyaspor.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.10 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Deniz Ertaş
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad23 Nov 2026
77 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Konyaspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match18 Nov 2026
Konyaspor march on in the cup
Antalyaspor are out and Konyaspor go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.56, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. 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.
Market23 Nov 2026
Pedrinho hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Konyaspor can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.27, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match21 Nov 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 9 matches without defeat is a foundation Konyaspor did not have in the autumn.
Match21 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
5 on the bounce on the road for Konyaspor. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Konyaspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jean-Luc Dompé
84 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Konyaspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Konyaspor
Jackson Muleka 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.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Konyaspor, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Arif Boşluk, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Chidozie Awaziem trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mostafa Mohamed signs something — a contract at Konyaspor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Deniz Türüç has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Deniz Türüç has written the date down.
Market16 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Pedrinho may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Looking ahead: the trip to Istanbulspor
Position 18 for the hosts, a long journey for the away end, and a fixture that will look ordinary on paper right up until it is not.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad26 Oct 2026
107 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Konyaspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market26 Oct 2026
Pedrinho puts it in writing
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Konyaspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match24 Oct 2026
Konyaspor make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Konyaspor have 5 straight wins of it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Salih Malkoçoğlu: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Konyaspor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Oct 2026
17 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Guilherme 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
It finished 3‑1, and it was Mostafa Mohamed’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Konyaspor.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Jackson Muleka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.44. 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match26 Sep 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market28 Sep 2026
Pedrinho hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Konyaspor can pretend not to have heard.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jackson Muleka 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Konyaspor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Gonçalves was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Jackson Muleka was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.63. 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Both jobs done by Enis Bardhi — 7.76
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 11 actions, 7.76, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 8.08 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad28 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Konyaspor 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Basel come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Konyaspor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mostafa Mohamed commits to Konyaspor for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Mostafa Mohamed 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Konyaspor have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Konyaspor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Gonçalves was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
Konyaspor may not be able to give Pedrinho what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Pedrinho wants continental football; whether Konyaspor can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.