Orkun Kökçü 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Besiktas are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A performance of 8.75 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Junior Olaitan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Position 1, 74 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
17 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
7 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.36 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
27 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Ernest Muçi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
10.00. 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Nahuel Estévez has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Besiktas have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.43, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
6 goals in one match, Václav Černý on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Besiktas and Umraniyespor.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Diogo Gonçalves provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Marked 8.79 — 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.
In brief
SquadWilfred Ndidi falls out with a teammate over standards
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcelo Ryan wants continental football; whether Besiktas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
Václav Černý 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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Ernest Muçi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.32. 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.
Derby days make names, and Václav Černý made his against Fenerbahce. 2‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Besiktas support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Yiğit Yüksel has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Istanbulspor will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Besiktas were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Junior Olaitan provided it, and the 9.13 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 Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in one match, Ernest Muçi on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Besiktas and Istanbulspor.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Novak Mićović is living that version at Besiktas, and it tends to show in the first month.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Marked 8.47 — 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.
A squad is not eleven players and a wish. Novak Mićović arrives from LA Galaxy to make the number up properly, and the value of that will be argued about in March rather than today.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Besiktas know it.
The fee is $2.4M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Basaksehir drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lautaro Amadé is living that version at Besiktas, and it tends to show in the first month.
3 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Serdar Saatçı is living that version at Besiktas, and it tends to show in the first month.
Add another name to the list: Sivasspor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Junior Onana. The answer from Besiktas has not changed — yet.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Besiktas have had the benefit of it.
“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.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Besiktas, and 6 appearances in 19 say he has earned the hearing.
Shots: 9. 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.
It needed Orkun Kökçü to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Fatih Karagumruk, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Besiktas can pretend not to have heard.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcelo Ryan wants continental football; whether Besiktas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
4 goals in 16 games at Zamalek — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
12 appearances in, the average sits at 7.45, and the people who defended him through the autumn are enjoying themselves enormously. Adaptation is a story football only tells backwards.
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.
26 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 49 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Marked 8.69 — 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Besiktas training over how hard people work
53 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Ersin Destanoğlu: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
30 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“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 Besiktas know it.
Václav Černý 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.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 36 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 8.21 — 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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 97 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 10.00 — 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.
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.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Alanyaspor kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Besiktas will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Two goals and a mark of 9.01 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Al Musrati 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Besiktas can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
A brace, and Marcelo Ryan takes the afternoon — 8.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcelo Ryan provided it, and the 8.10 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 Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals in one match, Marcelo Ryan on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Besiktas and Antalyaspor.
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.
In brief
SquadFelix Uduokhai falls out with a teammate over standards
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Orkun Kökçü's mistake
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.
34 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.
“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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 127 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Two goals and a mark of 9.97 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
32 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.
“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 Besiktas know it.
Václav Černý 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Besiktas, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Marked 3.73. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.00 — 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.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alexis Sánchez reports back to Besiktas with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Orkun Kökçü has improved at 26, which nobody expected
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Besiktas and Konyaspor in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Junior Olaitan has improved at 25, which nobody expected
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.
“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 Besiktas know it.
Marked 6.15 on 32 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Adana Demirspor will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
A 2‑1 win over Adana Demirspor, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Milot Rashica at his very best
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Besiktas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcelo Ryan wants continental football; whether Besiktas can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
Václav Černý 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.
7 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Orkun Kökçü has improved at 26, which nobody expected
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Besiktas, another week without a signature from Ersin Destanoğlu.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $12.1M has been paid because Marcelo Ryan is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Marcelo Ryan is living that version at Besiktas, and it tends to show in the first month.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces2 Aug 2027
Besiktas spend $12.1M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $12.1M for Marcelo Ryan, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Junior Olaitan has improved at 25, which nobody expected
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.
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad2 Aug 2027
12 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Al Musrati 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Basaksehir will make the call about Alexis Sánchez this week. Besiktas have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Besiktas would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Gaziantep paid $980.0K and Besiktas took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The name of Alexis Sánchez has come up in conversations Besiktas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Besiktas can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from JS Kabylie for Emre Bilgin 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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 name of Taylan Bulut has come up in conversations Besiktas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Position 3, 78 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Besiktas can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Fehervar for Semih Kılıçsoy 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.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
19 appearances and 2 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
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.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The name of Taylan Bulut has come up in conversations Besiktas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The fee is $14.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Konyaspor drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Diogo Gonçalves has just signed for Besiktas, and for once the answer mattered.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
The terraces14 Jun 2027
Besiktas spend $14.0M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $14.0M for Diogo Gonçalves, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
33 appearances at Besiktas and the goals keep coming. Besiktas are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Cengiz Ünder 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 Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Besiktas have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cengiz Ünder 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 have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Squad7 Jun 2027
8 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.
In brief
SquadOrkun Kökçü has become a man the manager trusts
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Besiktas will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
Ilhan Fakili 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.
18 appearances and 0 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
“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.
Market31 May 2027
Emre Bilgin returns from a loan that gave him nothing
2 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cengiz Ünder 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.
“I watch every Besiktas game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pyunik runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 goals in 33 games at Besiktas — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Squad17 May 2027
Cengiz Ünder 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 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.
6 goals in 22 games at Gaziantep — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Václav Černý 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.
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.
“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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
12 goals in 28 games at Trabzonspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Cengiz Ünder 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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
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.
31 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Jota Silva’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Besiktas.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cengiz Ünder 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 goals in 32 games at Besiktas — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.15, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad19 Apr 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Devis Vásquez's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Position 3, 75 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Marked 9.11 — 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.
A performance of 8.37 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Cengiz Ünder 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.
10 goals in 25 games at Trabzonspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
19 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Besiktas will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Gaziantep made Besiktas work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Besiktas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cengiz Ünder 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Besiktas, and 2 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Fenerbahce go through and Besiktas go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Emmanuel Agbadou decided nobody was going anywhere. Kasimpasa had no time left to answer.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Václav Černý 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
A 2‑1 win over Sivasspor, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Junior Olaitan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.43. 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.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Oh Hyeon-Gyu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.14. 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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Besiktas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 9.22 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
22 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Marked 9.64 — 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.
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Besiktas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Václav Černý 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Wilfred Ndidi and Besiktas agree another 3 years.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Milot Rashica was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.93. 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 goal that put Istanbulspor ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Besiktas equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Milot Rashica was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.99. 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Besiktas, and 3 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
29 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 9.11 — 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Talha Sarıarslan 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.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
A 0‑0 win over Adana Demirspor, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Position 3, 51 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Two goals and a mark of 8.87 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The offer from Pyunik for Emre Bilgin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Besiktas and Giresunspor, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It finished 4‑2, and it was Junior Olaitan’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Besiktas.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Milot Rashica was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.79. 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.
Marked 8.74 — 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Besiktas will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Besiktas, and 3 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Emirhan Topçu's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
6 goals in 12 games at Trabzonspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
3 goals in 16 games at Hatayspor — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Besiktas updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Václav Černý 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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Orkun Kökçü 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 board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Position 2, 37 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
8.87. 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.
Match21 Nov 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Besiktas. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
4 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 8.80 — 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
33 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
26 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
“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.
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.
Václav Černý 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.
Marked 9.54 — 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Position 2, 27 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
21 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Talha Sarıarslan is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Istanbulspor will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Besiktas were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
6 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Besiktas have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 42 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
29 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.
Kristjan Asllani 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.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Emre Bilgin 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Giresunspor, and it could have been more.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Milot Rashica takes the afternoon — 9.49
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Milot Rashica provided it, and the 9.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Orkun Kökçü 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 interest is real enough to have reached print. Besiktas have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Jota Silva was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.27. 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Emre Bilgin 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.
“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 Besiktas, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.18 — 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.
8.73. 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
El Bilal Touré was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.58. 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.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Lucas Ribeiro has just signed for Besiktas, and for once the answer mattered.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Amir Murillo commits to Besiktas for another 3 years.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Besiktas
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Orkun Kökçü 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Talha Sarıarslan is living that version at Besiktas, and it tends to show in the first month.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Hatayspor will make the call about Kartal Kayra Yılmaz this week. Besiktas have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexis Sánchez has just signed for Besiktas, and for once the answer mattered.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Besiktas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Kartal Kayra Yılmaz again, and this time the name on the line is Hatayspor. Besiktas are listening politely and promising nothing.