Joe Mendes 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.
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.
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 Chérif N'Diaye is on it.
It needed Elayis Tavşan to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Fenerbahce, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Can Kahveci was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Samsunspor dressing room was either.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Enes Albak's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Chérif N'Diaye signs something — a contract at Samsunspor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Athletic Bilbao have accepted the money. What Samsunspor do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Haluk Tan had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Samsunspor close the window on a squad of their own making
19 in and 14 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Semih Akyıldız is living that version at Samsunspor, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Samsunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jayden Oosterwolde 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Samsunspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Kaan Akyazı 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Samsunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Samsunspor have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Samsunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chérif N'Diaye 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Samsunspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kayserispor have kept their man, and Samsunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
With 4 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Chérif N'Diaye 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 Rick van Drongelen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Samsunspor 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Samsunspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Samsunspor is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Celil Yüksel, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
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 Can Kahveci to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Samsunspor 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.
Chances created: 10. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rick van Drongelen signs something — a contract at Samsunspor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 Samsunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Olivier Ntcham 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 name of Marius Mouandilmadji has come up in conversations Samsunspor were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Chérif N'Diaye. 1‑0 against Goztepe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Samsunspor know it.
Eyupspor will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Samsunspor were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Chérif N'Diaye provided it, and the 8.56 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Up for the corner, and Yalçın Kayan delivers — 7.90
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Yalçın Kayan scored, was marked 7.90, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.85 for the rest of it.
He is 21 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Eyupspor spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Samsunspor 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 Samsunspor 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.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout28 Sep 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.” Can Kahveci kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Samsunspor will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Serikspor had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Antoine Makoumbou was one of the reasons people came, and $10.8M does not replace that by itself.
“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 Samsunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Basaksehir have kept their man, and Samsunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
127 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Serikspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Samsunspor keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $161.0K — a club that wants Ömer Tiryakigil enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Serikspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Serikspor have gone to Eyupspor with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Marked 6.78 on 14 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Serikspor asked and Vanspor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michał Nalepa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Samsunspor will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Samsunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mbaye Diagne has, at Samsunspor, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.7K — a club that wants Necip Uysal enough to be asked twice.
The offer went to Galatasaray 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.
Chérif N'Diaye 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.
Samsunspor have gone to Corum FK with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
137 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Serikspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
$1.8M was the most the club would pay and Goztepe 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.
The offer went to Samsunspor 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.
$150.0K on the table at Fenerbahce. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Raymond Adeola 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Serikspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Michał Nalepa 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. Wa All Stars have kept their man, and Serikspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.