Marked for Mustafa Doğru
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KTP will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match12 May 2027
The small margins put KTP out
Out, 1‑2 to Inter Turku, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match15 May 2027
The wait goes on for KTP
7 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Oskari Paavola 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Jan Kvída 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 KTP this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
Nery Veloso gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match15 May 2027
Point won or two lost for KTP?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against RoPS? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Market17 May 2027
The Joni Mäkelä question follows KTP around
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Joni Mäkelä’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason KTP will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A move Mustafa Doğru would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mustafa Doğru is living that version at KTP, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Tempers go at KTP
Jan Kvída 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 55. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Selahattin Sevim is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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 terraces5 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kacper Kozłowski 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohamed Bayo. 1‑0 against Umraniyespor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.37, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Sep 2026
Chastening afternoon for Gaziantep
A 1‑5 beating by Fenerbahce was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Match12 Sep 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gaziantep and Fenerbahce in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Luis Pérez
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Nihad Mujakić 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.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Beaten 5 times, with 2 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
5.79 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
Mustafa Doğru hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Breno Lopes 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohamed Bayo. 2‑1 against Hatayspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.51 — 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nihad Mujakić 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Denis Drăguş finally opens his account
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Gaziantep have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Luis Pérez 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
2 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mert Ozcan is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market17 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gokhan Demiral has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
No investment in the facilities at Gaziantep
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Halil Bağcı 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandru Maxim and Gaziantep agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Denis Drăguş 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gaziantep, another week without a signature from Alexandru Maxim.