A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 The request is on a desk at Giresunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ognjen Mimović wants continental football; whether Giresunspor can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Giresunspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The words a physio says slowly. 70 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Giresunspor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Adana Demirspor wanted more than $490.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Ognjen Mimović 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Emre Bilgin has improved at 24, which nobody expected
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
87 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giresunspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Giresunspor
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giresunspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer went to Fenerbahce this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Salih Malkoçoğlu and Giresunspor agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Cristian Duma 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.
Giresunspor asked and Heerenveen said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giresunspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The deal with Feyenoord 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 clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Mainz 05 keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Cristian Duma 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nico Schulz 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Huesca have kept their man, and Giresunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Position 19 and 8 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Giresunspor can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Giresunspor have done the hard part with Fatih Karagumruk, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
$740.0K was the most the club would pay and Konyaspor were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Ognjen Mimović 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
A muscle injury sidelines Mazlum Demir for 19 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Giresunspor will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Emre Bilgin 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Adana Demirspor have kept their man, and Giresunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Deniz Dönmezer
The dugoutEren Yağmur knocks on the manager’s door
“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 Giresunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emre Bilgin 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.
“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 Giresunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ricardinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Haktan Şener 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 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 Nicolás Luján is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kévin Rocheteau trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 May 2028
Emre Bilgin 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kamil Ahmet Çörekçi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Position 19 and 8 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.
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Ognjen Mimović 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Giresunspor and Basaksehir in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“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; Giresunspor are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
8 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.
Ricardinho 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Haktan Şener 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Julius Biada will call it something else in private.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emre Bilgin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Giresunspor know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
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.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Giresunspor can tell you which week it ends in.
Fenerbahce left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Haktan Şener 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.
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 Kamil Ahmet Çörekçi.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Giresunspor can pretend not to have heard.
“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 Giresunspor know it.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Haktan Şener 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.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
Ricardinho 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emre Bilgin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Baris Omur after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Giresunspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Giresunspor until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Ricardinho 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alberto Martínez commits to Giresunspor for another 1 years.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emre Bilgin 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Jake Beesley at his very best