Adana Demirspor interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Enes Kabak keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Ashkan Alijani, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Adana Demirspor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Adana Demirspor, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
Levent Mercan 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Selahattin Sevim is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
In brief
SquadWords at Adana Demirspor training over how hard people work
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Adana Demirspor can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Adana Demirspor can pretend not to have heard.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Joakim Nilsson and Adana Demirspor agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Hörður Magnússon 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joakim Nilsson 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.
5 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Levent Mercan's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Adana Demirspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Stanislav Kritsyuk 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.
37 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Hörður Magnússon 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.
22 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑6 against Fenerbahce, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
“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; Adana Demirspor are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Hörður Magnússon 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.
Match6 Mar 2027
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Adana Demirspor and Fenerbahce in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.