14 shut-outs in 22 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Timo Schreuder has been having a lot of them.
Sefa Akgün 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Bodrum FK, another week without a signature from İrfan Can Eğribayat.
“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; Bodrum FK are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Bodrum FK will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bodrum FK, and 0 appearances in 36 say he has earned the hearing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bodrum FK can pretend not to have heard.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Bodrum FK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bodrum FK, and 0 appearances in 31 say he has earned the hearing.
Add another name to the list: Goztepe have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Juan José Rey. The answer from Bodrum FK has not changed — yet.
10 clean sheets from 16 appearances at Manisa FK. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.24 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for 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 Bodrum FK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Marrony. 1‑0 against Bandirmaspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“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 Bodrum FK know it.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Bodrum FK, and 0 appearances in 27 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bodrum FK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sefa Akgün was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and İrfan Can Eğribayat trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gökdeniz Bayrakdar signs something — a contract at Bodrum FK or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Sivasspor next, and one man in the Bodrum FK dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Eyupspor will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Position 17 and 7 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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.
Squad8 Nov 2032
Words at Eyupspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ada İbik 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 7.27, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sefa Akgün was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8.14. 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.
Level with 92 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Bodrum FK had all but put away. Kocaelispor will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bodrum FK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $51.4K of what Bodrum FK paid for Emirhan Yiğit is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bodrum FK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Bodrum FK may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Boardroom6 Sep 2032
Bodrum FK close the window on a squad of their own making
21 in and 28 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Nicolas Ortegel 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 words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bodrum FK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Erzurumspor waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Bodrum FK is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bodrum FK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
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.
İrfan Can Eğribayat 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Bodrum FK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Yiğit Fidan was one of the reasons people came, and $2.2M does not replace that by itself.
Melih Sayğı 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 accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Bodrum FK now.
Squad12 Jul 2032
Words at Bodrum FK training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolas Ortegel 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bodrum FK have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Luca Connell 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Miguel Aguirre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.