The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Gaziantep asked and Igdir FK said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Albert Gomez 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gaziantep will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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.
In brief
The dugoutLucas Vargas knocks on the manager's door
$880.0K settles it between the clubs for Lucas Vargas
Umraniyespor have accepted the money. What Gaziantep do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from Enyimba for Victor Gidado 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Emin Eren Sayar is living that version at Gaziantep, and it tends to show in the first month.
Add another name to the list: Serikspor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ogün Özçiçek. The answer from Gaziantep has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Gaziantep offered $16.0K; Igdir FK 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
Every supporter in the ground could have named the hole in this team, and most of them did, loudly, for months. Ussumane Djabi has been signed to close it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Keciorengucu have accepted the money. What Gaziantep do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Enver Kulašin 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Erzurumspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Gaziantep will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rodrigo Ramos trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A month in which every rumour is possible and most of them are nonsense. The manager has a list, the board has a number, and neither is telling the other the whole of 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 May 2028
Albert Gomez 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Drissa Camara signs something — a contract at Gaziantep or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gaziantep. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Drissa Camara’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Arda Kızıldağ 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Merih Demiral and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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 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 Gaziantep know it.
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.
In brief
The dugoutGörkem Bitin knocks on the manager's door
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Commercial news is the news nobody sings about and everything else is paid for with. The board will call it a partnership; the accountants will call it the difference between this squad and a smaller one.
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.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Gaziantep could ask drops and the wages Nazım Sangaré can ask rise.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Merih Demiral has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
In brief
BoardroomThe Gaziantep production line keeps running
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 44 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
Merih Demiral 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
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.
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.
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandru Maxim provided it, and the 8.18 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gaziantep and Sivasspor in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Juninho Bacuna. 1‑0 against Alanyaspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
46 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
1‑4 against Fenerbahce, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.83 for the rest of 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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 words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Ivan Brnić and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Albert Gomez 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.
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.
60 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces20 Mar 2028
The mood at Gaziantep has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
7.78, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Arda Kızıldağ and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Umut Keseci has, at Gaziantep, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
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.
It needed Drissa Camara to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Genclerbirligi, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
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.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Semih Sahin clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
“Somebody picks the team on Saturday. This week it is me, and that is as far as I have thought.” No promises were made in either direction, which is how these usually begin.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.99 for the rest of it.
Enver Kulašin and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The bill for the sacking has arrived. Semih Sahin leaves with $13.2K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
In brief
The dugoutA fresh start for Merih Demiral under the new man
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Besiktas defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
In brief
The dugoutBurak Bozan asks for a word with the manager
91 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ezequiel Parnisari and Gaziantep agree another 1 years.
“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.
Nobody at Gaziantep is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neftchi have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ömer Beyaz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“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 Gaziantep know it.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Semih Sahin on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Basaksehir moved on, Victor Gidado reports back to Gaziantep, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at Gaziantep until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Merih Demiral 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 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.
Gaziantep asked and Keciorengucu said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
Player ratingsBoth jobs done by Dejan Živkov — 6.54
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Basaksehir waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gaziantep is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandru Maxim provided it, and the 8.07 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Arda Kızıldağ 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 7.82. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
In brief
SquadWords at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
124 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gaziantep lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces24 Jan 2028
The mood at Gaziantep has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
Fenerbahce will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Ali Demirbilek has pre-agreed a move to Gaziantep, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 16 and 19 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Enver Kulašin 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Vanspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 17 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gaziantep lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
0‑3 to Trabzonspor, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Merih Demiral 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 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Semih Sahin after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Merih Demiral 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.
Gaziantep asked and Fenerbahce 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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gaziantep has been clear about where Drissa Camara stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arda Çolak 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.
Gaziantep have made the call to Istanbulspor. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ezequiel Parnisari and Gaziantep agree another 1 years.
Half the programme played, position 14, 17 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑4 Semih Sahin left the room before anybody could ask which.
500 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ogün Özçiçek has his answer from Gaziantep; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
Drissa Camara is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Zakaria Tindano is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Arda Kızıldağ 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.
“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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Arda Çolak 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Merih Demiral 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 23 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Enver Kulašin 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Semih Sahin left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Merih Demiral’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Gaziantep needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Luca Sonzogni
Player ratingsDrissa Camara beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Semih Sahin after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Arda Çolak 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.
Fenerbahce next, and one man in the Gaziantep dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nobody at Gaziantep 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Atınç Nukan is on 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 Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Up for the corner, and Merih Demiral delivers — 7.88
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Merih Demiral scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
17 combined actions and 6.94. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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 Gaziantep know it.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
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.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 6.65, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arda Çolak 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nazım Sangaré has his answer from Gaziantep; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Arda Kızıldağ and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Something was said to Juninho Bacuna and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gaziantep has been clear about where Halil Bağcı stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Konyaspor scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
A mark of 7.91, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
Luis Pérez is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
7 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.
Alexandru Maxim and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Arda Çolak 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Gaziantep will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It needed Alexandru Maxim to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Rizespor, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Semih Sahin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Gaziantep dressing room was either.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
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.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Semih Sahin to a room that had heard them before.
Rizespor next, and one man in the Gaziantep dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gaziantep have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.76 beside his name.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Rasmus Sipi is living that version at Gaziantep, and it tends to show in the first month.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Corum FK were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 7 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Merih Demiral 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
That is the business done at Gaziantep until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Arda Kızıldağ and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Burak Bozan'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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gaziantep have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“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; Gaziantep are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Rivers United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gaziantep is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Atınç Nukan is living that version at Gaziantep, and it tends to show in the first month.
Arda Kızıldağ 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 7.47. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
6 goals in one match, Enver Kulašin on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Gaziantep and Trabzonspor.
2‑4 to Trabzonspor, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manisa FK have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee is $3.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Esenler Erokspor drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Merih Demiral 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.
5 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Esenler Erokspor; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Schalke 04 have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Arda Çolak 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gaziantep are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
45 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandru Maxim was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Victor Gidado and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Gaziantep will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kacper Kozłowski trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandru Maxim 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The offer from Canon Yaounde for Victor Gidado 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Gaziantep have made the call to Rivers United. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
BA All Stars have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kocaelispor waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Gaziantep is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Gaziantep asked and Boluspor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Merih Demiral and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gaziantep can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gaziantep will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Ogün Özçiçek a promise
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with Istanbulspor, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Alexandru Maxim 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Drissa Camara 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Juninho Bacuna is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Luca Sonzogni is in the works
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Gaziantep have done the hard part with Vanspor, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“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 Gaziantep, 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Corum FK have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nihad Mujakić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Myenty Abena has written the date down.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Merih Demiral 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 season-long look at somebody else’s player: Merih Demiral arrives from Al-Ahli with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gaziantep are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Gaziantep 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Boluspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off 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 Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Christopher Lungoyi has his answer from Gaziantep; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gaziantep will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have shaken hands with Besiktas; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The deal with Basaksehir is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gaziantep offered $10.2M; Galatasaray 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Arda Kızıldağ 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 71 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Sontje Hansen 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ogün Özçiçek has written the date down.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Halil Dervişoğlu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gaziantep will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Nobody at Gaziantep 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 87 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ahmed Kutucu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Kacper Kozłowski has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Christopher Lungoyi signs something — a contract at Gaziantep or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A few words of the language, a friend at the next peg, and a training ground that has stopped feeling foreign. Nothing measurable, and everything visible on Saturdays.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gaziantep will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 42 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gaziantep has been clear about where Kacper Kozłowski stands, which is more than many ever get.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gaziantep will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
A brace, and Mohamed Bayo takes the afternoon — 8.86
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mohamed Bayo provided it, and the 8.86 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gaziantep and Goztepe in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Deian Sorescu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. 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.
1‑4 to Basaksehir, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Semih Sahin left the room before anybody could ask which.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Halil Bağcı has his answer from Gaziantep; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
The dugoutOgün Özçiçek knocks on the manager's door
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Trivante Stewart scored in the 86th minute, Kasimpasa had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Gaziantep took the lot.
Arda Kızıldağ 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Kasimpasa were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.84, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gaziantep can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Drissa Camara 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Gaziantep can tell you which week it ends in.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Semih Sahin left the room before anybody could ask which.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Fatih Karagumruk next, and one man in the Gaziantep dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Halil Dervişoğlu is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Halil Dervişoğlu trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Next up on the road: Fatih Karagumruk, position 17. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gaziantep has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
14 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 pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Karamba Gassama, and the manager let it.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Burak Bozan'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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Besiktas? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gaziantep can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Kacper Kozłowski will call it something else in private.
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.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.73 for the rest of it.
“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; Gaziantep are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
A point taken on 92 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
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.
“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 Gaziantep, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gaziantep can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Drissa Camara 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Drissa Camara 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 wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Burak Bozan is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sivasspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandru Maxim. 2‑0 against Antalyaspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Ahmed Kutucu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. 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 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 Gaziantep know it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kocaelispor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Semih Sahin to a room that had heard them before.
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.
6 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Gaziantep close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 0 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Bodrum FK keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Alexandru Maxim scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Rizespor, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Esenler Erokspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Denis Drăguş was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
“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 Gaziantep, 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bodrum FK have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gaziantep told Kacper Kozłowski something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gaziantep will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
0‑3 to Fenerbahce, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Everything agreed with Bandirmaspor, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Manisa FK have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Gaziantep asked and Kayserispor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gaziantep and Kocaelispor in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Sontje Hansen 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 9, 27 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Nobody left the Gaziantep dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Semih Sahin after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Drissa Camara 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.
“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 Gaziantep know it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Semih Sahin kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Victor Gidado
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Semih Sahin after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Gaziantep will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Burak Bozan'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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gaziantep know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Nazım Sangaré’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Gaziantep needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Minute 89, against Kasimpasa, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Christopher Lungoyi's mistake
The dugoutAhmed Kutucu knocks on the manager's door
Fatih Karagumruk will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Gaziantep were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 36 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.10, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Drissa Camara 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.
Nihad Mujakić 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.
“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.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Semih Sahin kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ogün Özçiçek trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Fatih Karagumruk in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Arda Kızıldağ and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Drissa Camara 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gaziantep has been clear about where Christopher Lungoyi stands, which is more than many ever get.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Burak Bozan'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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gaziantep know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alexandru Maxim’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Gaziantep needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Nobody at Gaziantep 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.
Eyupspor go through and Gaziantep go home, 2‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Sontje Hansen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Gaziantep did not have in the autumn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Semih Sahin on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Sontje Hansen 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Gaziantep and Kayserispor, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandru Maxim. 4‑2 against Kayserispor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alexandru Maxim has come out of that comparison in the side, and Gaziantep have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Drissa Camara 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 8.05 — 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gaziantep can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Semih Sahin on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
In brief
The dugoutDrissa Camara unhappy with how he is being used
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Eyupspor kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Gaziantep will be asked about the last half hour all week.
At 36 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.86, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Drissa Camara 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 8.00 — 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Semih Sahin after the 3‑3 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nihad Mujakić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Eyupspor next, and one man in the Gaziantep dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gaziantep, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Halil Bağcı has written the date down.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Next up on the road: Eyupspor, position 16. The supporters who go will talk about it all week and the ones who do not will check their phones at ten to five.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Semih Sahin could afford to be generous.
7 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.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Arda Kızıldağ 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
Drissa Camara 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kacper Kozłowski has his answer from Gaziantep; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
A 2‑1 win over Rizespor, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Drissa Camara was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ogün Özçiçek trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 24 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Gaziantep have a decision that made itself.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Gaziantep and Alanyaspor in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 3‑4 Semih Sahin left the room before anybody could ask which.
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 3 saves does not settle it either way.
Rizespor next, and one man in the Gaziantep dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Gaziantep is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gaziantep can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Gaziantep until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
Nihad Mujakić 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Gaziantep 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutHalil Bağcı knocks on the manager's door
$4.7M on the table at Konyaspor. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $4.8M — a club that wants Rayyan Baniya enough to be asked twice.
$970.0K was the most the club would pay and Konyaspor were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Gaziantep and Fenerbahce, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and Vanspor were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Drissa Camara was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. La Equidad have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 3‑3, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The offer from Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz for Christopher Lungoyi 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.
$1.1M on the table at Vanspor. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.2M — a club that wants Naby Oularé enough to be asked twice.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Esenler Erokspor have kept their man, and Gaziantep go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Drissa Camara 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.
Nihad Mujakić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.2M — a club that wants Muhammed Şengezer enough to be asked twice.
The deal with Galatasaray is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gaziantep this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Can Kahveci has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mahmut Ucar has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ibrahim Muldur has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cenk Torun has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
Squad7 new faces, and Gaziantep are still learning each other
The dugoutDrissa Camara knocks on the manager’s door
Sontje Hansen 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.
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Gaziantep training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Drissa Camara 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gaziantep, another week without a signature from Alexandru Maxim.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Ahmed Kutucu is in the works