SERGEN YALCIN: "THEY MADE ME PAY FOR THE FOOD I DID NOT EAT"

"Ismail Kartal cannot play the 'victim' role. He built the team, he approved the transfers, he ran the training camp. My situation last year was not like that: 5-6 of you went to dinner at night, you ate the meat and the desserts. At 12 at night you call me saying 'Coach, we are here, come over'. I come and sit at the table, half an hour later I look and you have all run away! The waiter brings the bill and locks it on me. Man, I didn't eat food, I didn't eat dessert, but I paid the bill! Coach Ismail is not like that, he set the table himself."

Sergen Yalcin, the head coach who worked at Besiktas last season and went through a turbulent period, finished the league in fourth place at the helm of the black-and-white team, while bidding farewell to the tournament by being eliminated by Konyaspor on his home ground in the semi-finals of the Turkish Cup. The experienced football man, who took a break from the green fields for a while after leaving his post at Besiktas, stepped into the media world this season and started working as a pundit in the program called "10 Numara" broadcast on the Kafa Sports YouTube channel together with the famous journalist Candas Tolga Isik. In the last episode of the program, Yalcin made very striking and controversial evaluations about the current situation of his colleague Ismail Kartal, and explained the difficult process he experienced with a humorous but equally reproachful restaurant metaphor. Emphasizing that Ismail Kartal built his own system, personally selected the entire player group and managed the pre-season preparation camp from start to finish, Yalcin argued that therefore, no victim literature could be made. Stating that during his own Besiktas period, he was later included in a problematic structure established entirely by others and that he was unfairly billed, the successful pundit made a reference that will be talked about for a long time.

IMAGE: KAFA SPORTS