The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
$4.9M on the table at Galatasaray. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Besiktas asked and Galatasaray said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Eren Aydın has, at Besiktas, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The fee is $800.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Sivasspor drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.8M — a club that wants Doğucan Haspolat enough to be asked twice.
“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 The request is on a desk at Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Besiktas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Orkun Kökçü 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 phone has started ringing about Élan Ricardo again, and this time the name on the line is Trabzonspor. Besiktas are listening politely and promising nothing.
Oh Hyeon-Gyu 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Tiago Djaló has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad4 Jun 2029
7 new faces, and Besiktas 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.
In brief
The dugoutVáclav Černý has become a man the manager trusts
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad7 May 2029
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yunus Akgün 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Václav Černý is on it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Besiktas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yunus Akgün was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Besiktas are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
10 goals in 10 games at Kocaelispor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yunus Akgün 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.
“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 Besiktas know it.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Yunus Akgün was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.34. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Besiktas told Semih Kılıçsoy something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
2‑0 against Karpaty, 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.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Besiktas hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Orkun Kökçü was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Anthony Dennis.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kayserispor can pretend not to have heard.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Bandirmaspor had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The deal with Erzurumspor is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jadel Katongo has agreed terms with Goztepe for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Besiktas pay $610.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Kayserispor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joshua Brenet 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kayserispor can pretend not to have heard.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kayserispor scored in the 90th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
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 Kayserispor have had the benefit of it.
The name of Jadel Katongo has come up in conversations Kayserispor were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Joshua Brenet 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.
Lionel Carole 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. İzzet Erdal has just signed for Kayserispor, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Kayserispor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joshua Brenet 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Kayserispor will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Kayserispor are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jadel Katongo’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Kayserispor needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Semih Güler 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 Joshua Brenet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Talha Sarıarslan and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 Kayserispor, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Joshua Brenet
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kayserispor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joshua Brenet was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kayserispor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ibrahim Gunok on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kayserispor told Moussa Kone something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
14 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.