Marked for Mustafa Sol
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to Alanyaspor this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.8M — a club that wants Maestro enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Filipe Alves 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Fatih Karagumruk pay $670.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Match15 Aug 2026
Sivasspor left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mustafa Sol 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Istanbulspor
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Vefa Temel has come up in conversations Istanbulspor were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mustafa Sol and Istanbulspor agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Emrecan Uzunhan 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
Words at Istanbulspor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Filipe Alves 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mustafa Muldur 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Umut Erkin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Can Akgun 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Vefa Temel
“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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Giresunspor come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Istanbulspor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alp Tutar and Istanbulspor agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mario Krstovski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Vefa Temel in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Istanbulspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Phellipe wants to go home
“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 Istanbulspor know it.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Konyaspor have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to NK Domzale: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.