Marked for Salih Dervisoglu
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Salih Dervisoglu
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hatayspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A move Tomás Sives 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. Tomás Sives is living that version at Hatayspor, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad24 Aug 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 Hatayspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Hatayspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chandrel Massanga 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Salih Dervisoglu
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hatayspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑4 by Basaksehir, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Recep Burak Yılmaz 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ünal Durmuşhan 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 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
Nobody left the Hatayspor dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Hatayspor turn down the training-ground plan
It is the quietest way a club tells you what its ambitions are. The money was asked for, the money was refused, and the people who work there every day now know exactly where they stand.
Market17 Aug 2026
Experience through the door at Hatayspor
Jean Carioca arrives at 38 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
Market17 Aug 2026
At 38, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ünal Durmuşhan and Hatayspor agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Recep Burak Yılmaz 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Chandrel Massanga 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
7 new faces, and Hatayspor 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Demir Sarıcalı’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Market10 Aug 2026
He is 14, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.