98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gaziantep they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Deian Sorescu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
İsmail Çokçalış 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 words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ali Demirbilek did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gaziantep is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Luis Pérez 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.
Squad23 Apr 2029
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abakar Sylla 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.
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings23 Apr 2029
Dejan Zukić was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
2‑5 against Basaksehir, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
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.
7 goals in one match, Chinedu Geoffrey on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Gaziantep and Basaksehir.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abakar Sylla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Gaziantep know it.
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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abakar Sylla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Karamba Gassama signs something — a contract at Gaziantep or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Basaksehir go through and Gaziantep go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abakar Sylla was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Murat Kabak was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Gaziantep dressing room was either.