It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sivasspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ankaragucu left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad21 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and Sivasspor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sivasspor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Successful dribbles: 35. 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Ricardinho takes the afternoon — 8.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ricardinho provided it, and the 8.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Kenan Akgun on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Sivasspor will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sivasspor can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rey Manaj. 2‑0 against Alanyaspor, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.33 on the card, and the Sivasspor support went home talking about one name.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Gökhan Akkan
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 12 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Kenan Akgun after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 new faces, and Sivasspor are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
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.
Nobody at Sivasspor 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 offer went to Alanyaspor this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $13.5M — a club that wants Maestro enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with Galatasaray, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sivasspor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Sivasspor have paid $940.0K for Alejandro Rodríguez, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Sivasspor had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shakhtar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Recep Kabak 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Semih Turuc is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oguzhan Guler 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.
Leonardo 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 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.
$940.0K on the table at Deportivo Cali. 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 offer went to Blackburn Rovers this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Rey Manaj 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.
Still no offer on the table, and Valon Ethemi’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Sivasspor will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Sivasspor have made the call to Shakhtar. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
In brief
The dugoutRey Manaj asks for a word with the manager