Marked for Rodrigo Leiva
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Aug 2027
Giresunspor are in real trouble now
Position 18, 15 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad9 Aug 2027
A fracture rules Göktan Cörüt out for 106 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Giresunspor will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market9 Aug 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Joaquín Zeballos wants continental football; whether Giresunspor can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jul 2027
31 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.
Match12 Jul 2027
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad12 Jul 2027
A fracture rules Göktan Cörüt out for 136 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Giresunspor will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rodrigo Leiva
17 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.
Match1 May 2027
8 matches without a win for Giresunspor
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Giresunspor are no longer polite ones.
Squad3 May 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Apr 2027
Rodrigo Leiva damages knee ligaments — 25 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Match24 Apr 2027
0‑7 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.
The terraces26 Apr 2027
Anger at Giresunspor spills outside the ground
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.
Match24 Apr 2027
7 matches without a win for Giresunspor
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Giresunspor are no longer polite ones.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A one-man rearguard from Tarık Çetin
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Boardroom26 Apr 2027
Pressure builds in the Giresunspor boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Tarık Çetin 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.
Match24 Apr 2027
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Giresunspor and Basaksehir, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad26 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dušan Cvetinović, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Apr 2027
Rodrigo Leiva damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Match19 Apr 2027
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match17 Apr 2027
6 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Matías Contrera 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Lescano 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Ninety minutes of Lukáš Letenay at his very best
Marked 8.14. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Giresunspor.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
Rodrigo Leiva damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Lukáš Letenay 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.