With patience, they know their way around Trabzonspor anyway. The club and its fans have been waiting for the championship for 38 years since 1984. The longing is huge. Year after year, the club is considered one of the favorites for the championship, but failed again and again.
On Saturday (04/23/2022) the team wants to get back on the road to success and take the next step. Opponent Adana Demirspor however, currently occupies fifth place in the table and is still fighting for participation in the European Cup.
Coach and club boss harmonize
As so often, the star is the coach. Abdullah Avci took over in November 2020. When it comes to squad planning, the 58-year-old harmonizes beautifully with club boss Ahmet Agaoglu. In June 2021, he made the association’s debt public. According to this, the club’s liabilities amounted to 1.192 billion Turkish lira (approx. 114.84 million euros) around ten months ago. Because of the ongoing corona pandemic, not too much should have changed. For Trabzonspor speaks that the big Istanbul clubs have accumulated much higher debts.
Additions hit
When it comes to finances, the transfer market requires tact and imagination as well as good youth work. And Avci and Agaoglu seem to have all that.
The two flagship players are national goalkeeper Ugurcan Cakir (26) and midfielder Abdülkadir Ömür (22). Both come from their own youth. Two of the numerous additions who joined the team before the season were particularly successful. On the one hand there is Marek Hamsik (34). The Slovak played for SSC Napoli in the Italian Serie A for many years, is known for his mohawk and came on a free transfer from IFK Göteborg. He has quickly become the central figure in midfield and a leader.
The top scorer is Denmark’s Andreas Cornelius with 13 league goals. He came from Parma Calcio from the Italian Serie B. The club spent a total of around 14.4 million euros on 35 new players.
Discipline and efficiency instead of spectacle
Trabzonspor has the best offense and defense in the league and has only suffered two defeats this season. But Avci’s team doesn’t necessarily stand for spectacle. Rather, discipline and efficiency make the leaders. Avcı usually lets play from a well-organized defensive.
The offensive is difficult to calculate. The scorers are well distributed. In addition to Hamsik, only the now 34-year-old Gervinho is internationally known. The Ivory Coast man used to play for FC arsenal and AS Roma. German fans know former Mainz player Yunus Malli and Tymoteusz Puchacz, a loanee from Union Berlin. So Trabzonspor may be a mixture of nameless, old internationals and some talents. But the collective works.
Start of a new era?
At the Black Sea, they know that it’s harder to stay on top than to get to the top. And yet the whole of Trabzon dreams of one species Renaissance. Because the club had already started to annoy the teams from Istanbul – with success.
In 1959 the Süper Lig was introduced and in 1976 Trabzonspor became the first non-Istanbul champions. By 1984, the club had won five more national titles. For the club, the championship this year could therefore be the start of a kind of resurrection. A change at the top would be good for Turkish football anyway.