What happened in Turkish football today? 31/12/2022

Trabzonspor winning title after 38 years has been most memorable moment of 2022.

As we are entering to the 2023 year, its time to look at the three best teams of the 2022 and even through of mixed performance during on-going season, it would need to be stated that best team in overall for 2022 has been league champions Trabzonspor.

Trabzonspor during previous season and especially towards end of it has been fully focussed into league title even through it did provide some worries towards end of the league as it did lose some of its point advantage but still got title with 3 weeks until end of the season with draw against Antalyaspor. Without doubt, key players who has provided such performance for Trabzonspor has been Anthony Nwakaeme and Cornelius who has scored lots of goals which did bring title. In fact, selling those players in summer transfer window, mainly due of unwanted circumstances has been main reason why Trabzonspor did show such decline of performance. Also celebration of its supporters after winning title for 38 years has been one of the memorable moments of 2022 in Turkey.

 As been noted, so far during this season team has been in decline and didnt provide top level game and needs to do some changes including during mid-season transfer window.

Fenerbahce had a great all-round year performance.

When looking with overall performance of 2022, it could be stated that Fenerbahce has been best player as it did provide one of the best performances in the league during 2nd half of previous season and also dominates league after Jorge Jesus appointment.

Fenerbahce has been very dissapointing 2021 and did show some poor results, but on 2022 things has been turned upside down in positive sense for them as their did show one of the best performance around Turkey. Firstly, with appointment of Ismail Kartal who has turned around entirely whole team and has starting getting wins back-to-back and has raised side into 2nd spot and hence led team to get Champions League qualifying round. In fact, as would be remembered by some when Fenerbhace has been discussing to appoint Jorge Jesus there was lots of criticism and worry that injustice has been done to Kartal. In fact, this blog has also looked at the topic in uncertain manner. But Jorge Jesus has turned around side entirely and to some extend has led people to forget about Kartal. With being 1 point behind league leaders Galatasaray right now and being at last 16 of Europa League has shown how successful was Jorge Jesus and even through he does tend to struggle against big clubs, he does show game at Super League which is different from other clubs.

There are lots of expectation for Fenerbahce at 2023 as it is being one of the main contenders for league title and also even to get Europa League which seems to be very difficult task but we would argue is not impossible.

Adana Demirspor for sure being main surprise for 2022.

One of the main surprises during 2022 in Turkey has been Adana Demirspor who did have great previous season and also is being currently one of the leadership contenders at the Super League.

With Murat Sancak setting high aims and hence appointing Vincenzo Montella as club head coach has been paid back for the side. As it is known, for years Turkish clubs has transferred and appointed big names to its clubs, but it has been turned out insuccessfully for them. But this has been turned entirely opposite in positive sense, as among getting some good names with many of them having good experience in the Super League has turned out well. Montella, among Jorge Jesus, didnt have much issue of adapting to Super League an issue which many foreign coaches have in Turkey and managed to get some great results during whole season.

Adana Demirspor for sure does have high aims for 2023 as it would be aiming to get European spot in the end of the season and would expect to continue to make some impressing transfers in both transfer window which would have positive impact to squad.

In other news:

- TFF is expected to not give any games to referee Erkan Ozdemar until end of the season.

- Fenerbahce are interested to transfer Santos player Felipe Jonatan, Montpellier player Nicolas Cozza

- Fenerbahce are interested to transfer Brentford player Mathias Jensen.

- Galatasaray has set transfer fee of its player Sacha Boey as 16 million euro.

- Galatasaray are considering to sell its player Alexandru Cicaldau for 3-3.5 million euro during mid-season transfer window.

- AlNassr are interested to transfer Galatasaray-loaned player Mauro Icardi.

- Galatasaray are interested to transfer Lille player Jonathan Bamba