Football Season Guide

Last season, Konya gave the typical example of failing to cope with the busy schedule. They could not assemble a wide-range squad and had to face its bad results. If coach Sergen Yalcin had not been appointed in March, they would have found themselves in the 1st division. In fact, the season was kicked off with a big handicap for them as they had to miss their fans at home for five fixtures because of ban. They have lost many points in this period and coach Mustafa Akcay was fired. Then the fans saw coach Mehmet Ozdilek lose his job. At this point, the board took a good decision and brought the saviour in. He could manage to keep the team in the Super League. However, he could not agree with the board for the new season and coach Riza Calimbay was appointed. Looking at their summer transfer market action, his first task was to improve their defensive performance. Ugur Demirok was signed in from the league rivals Trabzon. Since he has worked with the coach before, he trusts him a lot. Then they had to sign another center back, because Filipovic got injured seriously during the pre-season camp. So they added Fallou Diagne from the Bundesliga side Werder Bremen. Evgen Opanasenko was also signed in and this is going to be his first experience outside Ukraine. Considering that they have Skubic who offered a great performance in the last season, he should be considered as a support player. In the midfield, they lost the experienced midfielder Ali Camdali. In order to replace him, Marko Jevtovic was signed in from Partizan. Like the Ukranian arrival, he is also leaving his home country Serbia for the first time. He will compete with Volkan and Hadziahmetovic in order to get a shirt. They parted company with Samuel Eto’o. It means that they have Jahovic to lead the offence zone. Besides him, the coach has Yatabare and Traore. Considering their last season’s performances, it would be good to add another attacker.