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.
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.
“I watch every Samsunspor game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Genclerbirligi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He has had enough of the noise. Whether Samsunspor can be a quieter place for him, or whether the only cure is a move somewhere the phone-ins are gentler, is a question for the next few months.
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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Samsunspor will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
4 goals in 7 games at Serikspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Samsunspor updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
0‑5. Arsenal play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
“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 The request is on a desk at Samsunspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Up for the corner, and İsmail Yüksek delivers — 7.51
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. İsmail Yüksek scored, was marked 7.51, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
At 21 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chérif N'Diaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Yunus Emre Çift 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.
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.
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.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Erkan Erkin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Samsunspor dressing room was either.
“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 Trabzonspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Trabzonspor heard it as anything else.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 31 gone
That is the business done at Trabzonspor 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.
Nuno Santos 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 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Trabzonspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Trabzonspor will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
Squad16 new faces, and Trabzonspor are still learning each other
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Samsunspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Alanyaspor for Yunus Emre Çift was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The chase for Onurcan Piri ended with $100.0K changing hands and Kayserispor out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
5 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.
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. Sivasspor have kept their man, and Samsunspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trabzonspor can pretend not to have heard.
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.
14 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.
Nobody at Trabzonspor 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.
The offer from Boluspor for Olivier Ntcham was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Celil Yüksel was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Position 2, 82 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Cenk Yildirim has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Burak Inan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Samsunspor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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.
The phone has started ringing about Olivier Ntcham again, and this time the name on the line is Boluspor. Samsunspor are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.
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.
Samsunspor asked and Estoril Praia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Fenerbahce on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Fabinho is on it.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trabzonspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fenerbahce next, and one man in the Trabzonspor dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Iliano Remans has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Sint-Truiden left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Feb 2027
7 new faces, and OH Leuven 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.
The dugout15 Feb 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 Thomas Doku to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at OH Leuven, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Trabzonspor will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.33 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 7.54 for the rest of it.
“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 Trabzonspor hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 6.92 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. OH Leuven have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The name of Arthur Lallias has come up in conversations OH Leuven were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Henok Teklab 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.
OH Leuven asked and Athletic Bilbao said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 goals and a season average of 7.31. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Thomas Doku left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Noë Dussenne.
21 goals and a season average of 7.68. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
A brace, and Mohamed Salah takes the afternoon — 8.59
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohamed Salah provided it, and the 8.59 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Franculino was one of the reasons people came, and $30.7M does not replace that by itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Slavia Prague have kept their man, and Trabzonspor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
Looking aheadThe big one: Galatasaray come into view
Ali Donny Sylla 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 dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Thomas Doku, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑1 away to the standard of Benfica. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.97 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Benjamin Bouchouari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
124% of the income goes out in wages at Trabzonspor
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Volkan Kahveci after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 35 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Marked 8.02 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Thomas Doku left the room before anybody could ask which.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Anderlecht.
Nobody at OH Leuven is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 78 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Chibuike Nwaiwu is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Edin Višća. 2‑0 against Basaksehir, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Trabzonspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Benjamin Bouchouari 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 bid was some way short and OH Leuven did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at OH Leuven 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. OH Leuven will try again when the window opens; Zulte Waregem may not be selling by then.
OH Leuven asked and Lommel said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
5 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Óscar Gil has come out of that comparison in the side, and OH Leuven have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at OH Leuven than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Nobody at OH Leuven 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 156 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Trabzonspor have lost him in all but the paperwork.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 7.83 for the rest of it.
Chances created: 15. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.