“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Besiktas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Fabio Miretti 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.
Gaziantep made Besiktas work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Tiago Djaló 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.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
Amir Murillo 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Milot Rashica has his answer from Besiktas; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody at Besiktas will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Besiktas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Besiktas told Junior Olaitan something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Milot Rashica trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Gaziantep next, and one man in the Besiktas dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
Emre Bilgin’s loan is measured in nothing happening
5 clean sheets from 11 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.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Besiktas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Murillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.27 — 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
10 new faces, and Besiktas 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Merih Guler, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutWilfred Ndidi knocks on the manager’s door
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Besiktas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Murillo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Besiktas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutWilfred Ndidi asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Wilfred Ndidi
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Amir Murillo 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tiago Djaló 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.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Besiktas will be judged on one thing only.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Besiktas know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Fenerbahce in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Besiktas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Three points for Besiktas, 1‑0 the final word against Kocaelispor in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Emirhan Topçu 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 90 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Goztepe; Besiktas go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Guadalajara moved on, Amir Murillo reports back to Besiktas, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Rukh had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Murillo 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Besiktas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Besiktas and Goztepe have settled on $10.3M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rizespor have kept their man, and Besiktas go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Amir Murillo has come up in conversations Besiktas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Besiktas ran out of time with Gaziantep. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Besiktas offered $2.1M; Alanyaspor 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Besiktas close the window on a squad of their own making
15 in and 8 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Amir Murillo 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.
The offer from Antalyaspor for Orkun Kökçü was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Besiktas asked and Goztepe 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 be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Besiktas heard it as anything else.
The chase for Florian Loshaj ended with $770.0K changing hands and Igdir FK out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Florian Loshaj has, at Besiktas, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hakan Sahin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
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.
In brief
The dugoutVáclav Černý asks for a word with the manager