Marked for Emir Dadük
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Hatayspor
13 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Hatayspor will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match2 Jan 2027
Nowhere to hide for Hatayspor
0‑3 against Gaziantep, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match4 Jan 2027
Every point is an argument now for Hatayspor
Position 18 and 4 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Hatayspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Hatayspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Match2 Jan 2027
The goals have deserted Hatayspor
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Hatayspor can tell you which week it ends in.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
A brace, and Funsho Bamgboye takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Funsho Bamgboye provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Emir Dadük is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Funsho Bamgboye commits to Hatayspor for another 3 years.
Match10 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Funsho Bamgboye. 2‑1 against Giresunspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Kerem Yazici 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Engin Aksoy in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hatayspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Sinan Ozan kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad5 Oct 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Emir Dadük in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hatayspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Nicolás Luján
“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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Sinan Ozan to a room that had heard them before.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Hatayspor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Engin Aksoy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Renato Maceió slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Renato Maceió is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Nobody at Hatayspor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ahmet Aktorkoglu
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hatayspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match29 Aug 2026
Nowhere to hide for Hatayspor
0‑4 against Kayserispor, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad31 Aug 2026
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Hatayspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Inter, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The medical room confirms 51 days on the sidelines for Ünal Durmuşhan, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Hatayspor
Yılmaz Cin 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
3 matches without a goal for Hatayspor
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Hatayspor 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑3 to Basaksehir, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Trabzonspor, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Yılmaz Cin in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hatayspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Hatayspor asked and Columbus Crew said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gabriel Leite, and the manager let it.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Hatayspor dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan move for Kerem Yazici is in the works
Hatayspor have made the call to AZAL. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Baran Sarka and Hatayspor agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Emir Dadük in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hatayspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Engin Aksoy 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Konyaspor: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Konyaspor: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
No place for Renato Maceió in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Hatayspor are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market3 Aug 2026
Hatayspor bring in an old head
Gabriel Leite is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.