0‑1 to Gaziantep, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Kasimpasa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andri Fannar Baldursson 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.
“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 dugout18 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Hakan Dervisoglu to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kubilay Kanatsızkuş is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Kayserispor in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Godfried Frimpong signs something — a contract at Kasimpasa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luciano Giménez provided it, and the 8.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.27 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Andreas Gianniotis and Kasimpasa agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Kaan Kairinen 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.
Something was said to Yusuf Özdemir and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Giorgi Kvernadze provided it, and the 8.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
1 for Andri Fannar Baldursson, marked 7.69, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mehmet Kalkan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kasimpasa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 Kasimpasa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Trabzonspor have kept their man, and Kasimpasa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
İrfan Can Kahveci 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Gaziantep paid $7.6M and Trabzonspor took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trabzonspor can pretend not to have heard.
Trabzonspor asked and Kayserispor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Trabzonspor hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Kasimpasa paid $280.0K and Trabzonspor took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.86 with 42 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
A brace, and Mohamed Salah takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohamed Salah provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trabzonspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Noah Saviolo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Emre Torun could afford to be generous.
Trabzonspor offered $12.2M; Besiktas said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trabzonspor can pretend not to have heard.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Trabzonspor had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The name of Paul Onuachu has come up in conversations Trabzonspor were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.60 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
500 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Kaan Ayhan 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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.58 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.
Ernest Muçi 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Onuralp Çevikkan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Franculino was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.84. 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.
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.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 8 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mehmet Unal has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Adana Demirspor spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Umut Nayir wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Umut Nayir found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Kayserispor went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Trabzonspor have paid $10.7M for Drissa Camara, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Trabzonspor offered $10.6M; Besiktas said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Antalyaspor is saying, and nobody at Trabzonspor is enjoying the guessing.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 5 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
Mustafa Eskihellaç 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.
In brief
Squad8 Trabzonspor players away with their countries