Marked for Igor Lichnovsky
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Shavy Babicka out for 90 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fatih Karagumruk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
28 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jhon Azcárate is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“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 Fatih Karagumruk know it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Daniele Verde 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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Serginho runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces12 Oct 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match10 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yiğit Efe Demir. 1‑0 against Istanbulspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Shavy Babicka breaks a bone — 105 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 105 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
36 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Igor Lichnovsky 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jhon Azcárate gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jhon Azcárate has just signed for Fatih Karagumruk, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Serginho runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 18, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Davide Biraschi
“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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Hatayspor will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Shavy Babicka breaks a bone — 119 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 9.60 — 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Daniele Verde 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.
Squad14 Sep 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 Fatih Karagumruk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.22 — 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Fatih Karagumruk 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Serginho runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Fatih Karagumruk have gone and got theirs early.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
Shavy Babicka breaks a bone — 126 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 126 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Sep 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 Fatih Karagumruk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 277% of everything Fatih Karagumruk earn
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Serginho 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Shots: 6, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
The chances came and went for Daniele Verde
6 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Serginho changes it off the bench
He was not in the side at half past three and he had settled it before five. Half an hour, and Fatih Karagumruk had a different afternoon.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 31 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Igor Lichnovsky was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.17. 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Sandro Manoel 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Fatih Karagumruk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wilfredo Olivera 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.
Squad31 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
João Camacho dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Igor Lichnovsky 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fatih Karagumruk has been clear about where Matías Kranevitter stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Tiago Çukur has come up in conversations Fatih Karagumruk were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Fatih Karagumruk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wilfredo Olivera 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
“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.
Market10 Aug 2026
At 39, 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
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Igor Lichnovsky and Fatih Karagumruk agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Matías Kranevitter 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Igor Lichnovsky has his answer from Fatih Karagumruk; what he does with it is the next window’s story.