14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giresunspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Giresunspor has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ahmet Arslan 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Giresunspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giresunspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Giresunspor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thiago Ennes 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Antalyaspor scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Giresunspor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
5 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Giresunspor can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
54 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giresunspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑5 against Trabzonspor, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Mathias Fjørtoft Løvik 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Ortiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Giresunspor 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑5, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Giresunspor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Yiğit Efe Demir is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and Alperen Aydın delivers — 7.50
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Alperen Aydın scored, was marked 7.50, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Giresunspor can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑3 Deniz Guler left the room before anybody could ask which.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mathias Fjørtoft Løvik is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jacopo Sassi 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 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Giresunspor told Arif Kocaman something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Federico Ortiz 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.
Giresunspor asked and Trabzonspor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ahmet Arslan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Giresunspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
23 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Giresunspor are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Giresunspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fatih Karagumruk next, and one man in the Giresunspor dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Miguel Carvalho has, at Giresunspor, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Federico Ortiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Deniz Guler left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Wellerson
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Arda Kılıç
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
0‑5 to Galatasaray, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Federico Ortiz 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Giresunspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ahmet Arslan 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 gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑5 Deniz Guler left the room before anybody could ask which.