1‑0 against SC Freiburg, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Walter González was at the centre of the description.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Alanyaspor have had the benefit of it.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Yusuf Özdemir 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.
Marked 8.70 — 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.
Istanbulspor made Alanyaspor work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad13 Dec 2027
İbrahim Kaya 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chikhura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chikhura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chikhura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
İzzet Çelik 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.
Yusuf Özdemir 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Two goals and a mark of 9.96 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Yusuf Özdemir 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
İbrahim Kaya 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
10 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 98 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
İzzet Çelik 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chikhura will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
The terraces27 Sep 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ricardo Delgado trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
1‑1 against Hammarby, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Yusuf Özdemir 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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.96, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Meschack Elia 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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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.
Jesús Lugo 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: İzzet Çelik. 1‑0 against Samtredia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitriy Velisevich 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.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alanyaspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Gaïus Makouta 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: İbrahim Kaya. 1‑0 against Kasimpasa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. İzzet Çelik will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Chikhura escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
A brace, and İzzet Çelik takes the afternoon — 8.57
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. İzzet Çelik provided it, and the 8.57 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chikhura this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 23 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.
Marked 5.56. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dmitriy Velisevich and Chikhura agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Chikhura training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Lugo 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.
Torpedo Kutaisi made Chikhura work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad6 Sep 2027
5 new faces, and Chikhura 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Saba Tsitaishvili has come out of that comparison in the side, and Chikhura have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Marked 5.44. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Jesús Lugo 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
In brief
Player ratingsSergio Riffo could not find anything
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Jesús Lugo 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.
“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 Chikhura, and it is not being withdrawn.
Leonardo Terán 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jesús Lugo 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.
At 23 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.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
İzzet Çelik was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.56. 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.
“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 Chikhura know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Yusuf Özdemir 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 phone has started ringing about İzzet Çelik again, and this time the name on the line is Ravan. Alanyaspor are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
SquadMeschack Elia falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadGaïus Makouta has become a man the manager trusts
115 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alanyaspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yusuf Özdemir 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.
Yusuf Özdemir 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.
119 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Alanyaspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Yusuf Özdemir 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 Alanyaspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. İzzet Çelik 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.