DaneBramage

October 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK 1. Lig My final game in Turkey. -------------------------------------------------------------- Job Search I'd been checking the available roles after every game, and speculative applications for the Scottish and Cypriot national jobs (both in Nations League C) were long shots that went nowhere. But these three coming available at the start of October were all more in the ballpark of what I should realistically be aiming for. Both are countries I've been in before, with success in South Korea but dismal failure in Argentina. I've been offered and accepted one of these, but which one? --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK 1. Lig We haven't made a bad start to life in the second tier, although we have struggled for wins and goals. Which does sound like a bad start actually, but four draws have made it respectable. The big win over Fatih Karagumruk was the obvious highlight, and Tayfun Gurleyen has proved to still be a goalscorer despite the step up in quality. Only managing a draw against Amed SK was annoying, they were promoted alongside us so taking just a point after leading 2-0 sucked. But we scraped a lucky point against Bucaspor 1928, keeping a clean sheet due to a MotM performance from our goalie. We're outside the relegation area at the moment, but could really do with some more wins (to point out the obvious). We've drawn more than half of our games, but Gaziantep FK are the specialists in that field. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK Squad Stats Pointing out the obvious here, but Tayfun Gurleyen was far and away the best player with 30 goals. He had a lot of support around him though, as pretty much everyone in an attacking role impressed and three others all reached double figures. Our defence was among the best in the division, but did include a couple of loanees and will need upgrading for next season. -------------------------------------------------------------- History Promotion number 14. Haven't yet decided if I'm staying for a crack at the second tier or moving on. Which probably means I'll stick with it for now, but will keep an eye out for opportunities to leave. -------------------------------------------------------------- Languages New: Turkish (basic) Total: 20 --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup One win would have been enough to wrap up the title, we finished up with all three to make it emphatic. The only time we nearly slipped up here was away at Zonguldak Komurspor, but we managed two late goals to clinch it. We ended the season with a 14 game unbeaten run. A ten point winning margin, very comfortable in the end. And a goal tally that blew everyone else away. --------------------------------------------------------------

April 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup 17 points from a possible 21, very happy with this. The win over Yeni Malatyaspor was an important one, 1st v 2nd at the time, and it allowed us to open up a six point gap at the top. Since then they've lost twice more and fallen away. Our strike partnership has been on fire since the turn of the year. In these 12 games there have been six occasions when Tayfun Gurleyen scored a brace, and his partner Serhat Kara also added one. Seven points clear with three games to go. A play-off spot is guaranteed, but automatic promotion and the title should be ours. --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2046 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup Our first game of the year was a poor one. We dominated and held a two goal lead, then managed to throw it away even once Amed SK had been reduced to ten men. The next two games were against playoff rivals, and taking four points was a good outcome. We then took on two sides in the relegation area and picked up a couple of comfortable victories. 10 games left. We're looking good for a play-off spot, too close to call for the one automatic place though. --------------------------------------------------------------

December 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup We had 33 shots against Zonguldak Komurspor, but only for a combined total of 2.38 xG. Scoring twice from that is fine, but allowing them to score twice at the other end from just 0.48 xG was the problem. Other than that though, we had a perfect month. Three wins and three clean sheets. My attacking quartet have had a great time of it so far this season, all of them having at least 14 goal contributions. We're into the second half of the season, and we've now hit the top of the table. The two sides who were above me both lost twice this month. --------------------------------------------------------------

November 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup A lot of wins this period, but we lost possibly the most important game. We didn't put up much of a fight in the defeat to Yeni Malatyaspor, and this allowed them to increase their lead at the top of the table. The opening match of October, a big win over Van Spor FK, was my 600th game in management. A slight drop off to the leading teams, but we do have a game in hand. --------------------------------------------------------------

September 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Grup Six new faces joined our first-team squad over the summer, and they were joined by four loanees. And with all the expectation, we then lost on the opening day to a newly relegated side. But we got on to winning ways in game two, and continued to smash in a bunch of goals over the next few matches. Muhammed Acikgoz picked up where he left off with a hat-trick against Kocaelispor, and Ertugrul Guney copied him with three of his own at 52 Orduspor FK. Early days of course, but we've shown that we're going to be in contention this year. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK Squad Stats With 25 goals Muhammed Acikgoz ended us as top scorer in the division. 14 of them came in my time at the club, and included four hat-tricks. There is a distract shortness at centre-back, we'll need our recruitment team to do some work there over the summer. -------------------------------------------------------------- History We pulled ourselves into the play-off mix, but there was no quick promotion. Our lack of central defenders cost us against stronger opposition. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Play-Offs In the first round we're away at Yeni Malatyaspor. They finished 3rd, and they gave me my first loss here, a very poor 3-0 beating. And they smashed us again here. It was utterly terrible. We went 1-0 down very early on, but even so we kept it to just the one goal for the next hour. Then we missed a penalty in the 64th minute and capitulated afterwards. --------------------------------------------------------------

May 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Group Brilliant, then crap. Muhammed Acikgoz notched hat-tricks in back-to-back games (his third and fourth in just seven games under my stewardship), then the winner against Kirklarelispor. But we missed a penalty at Kocaelispor then fell apart in the final 15 minutes to gift them the win, were missing several players through suspension against Sivas Bld., and our strikers had an off day at Amed SK. The three successive wins saw us climb up into 4th place, but the three consecutive losses then saw us fall back to 6th. Luckily, that was just enough to clinch the final play-off spot. It was a close call though, if Zonguldak Komurspor had turned their draw on the final day into a win we'd have missed out. --------------------------------------------------------------

March 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Group Muhammed Acikgoz added another hat-trick, and his partner up front Dirbaz Avunc proved himself to be deadly from the spot. It's lucky he did this against Balikesirspor, we absolutely battered them with an xG of 3.91 compared to their 0.52, not winning was a travesty. We had our first dreadful performance against Yeni Malatyaspor. It was men versus boys and could have been much worse. I clearly did a poor job of looking over the squad before taking over, as there's only one centre-back in the squad (including the U19s). We've had to play a defensive midfielder at the back, and it showed here. Ouch. The dropped points have seen us drop away again, and the deficit is even bigger than when I took over. --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2045 - 1461 Trabzon FK 2. Lig - Beyaz Group An excellent start. Ertugrul Guney is the player with the highest average rating in the division, and he showed why with a brace in my first game in charge. 19 year old Muhammed Acikgoz is our top scorer, and the hat-trick to beat Batman brought him to 15 goals for the season. Nicely done, the gap's down to just one point. --------------------------------------------------------------

February 2045 Job Search Since I quit FC Anyang in November there hadn't been many vacancies available, other than clubs at the lower end of the Argentinian second tier. I should probably go back there at some point to try and rectify the previous disaster, but none of these jobs were the right option. A short while later two jobs popped-up in the Turkish third tier, and I decided to apply for one of them. 1461 Trabzon FK have turned into a yo-yo club, with three promotions and three relegations in the last 12 years. This season they've been in and around the fight for the play-offs. With 11 games remaining they're just outside these positions at the moment, but recent form has been decent so there's a chance to get back in the mix. --------------------------------------------------------------