The manager of Sivasspor, who started his sporting career as a wrestler, now seems set to wrestle Anatolioan football to the top of the Turkish game. (insidefutbol)

Until the age of 14, Bulent Uygun was a wrestler. This was mainly because of his father who was a wrestling coach. One day Uygun went to watch his friends playing football as they usually did, but on this particular day one of the teams was missing a player. The coach of this team managed to persuade Uygun to take this boy’s place. After the game, the coach called his father and said: “If you push him to be a football player, he is going to be star.” Uygun’s father heeded the coach’s advice and the youngster’s wrestling career was over. What many don’t know is that Uygun still feels emotional about this change of career. He was a successful wrestler and felt he could have achieved great things in the ring.

Young Bulent Uygun’s football career began at Sakaryaspor in the junior team when he was 14. Whilst at Sakaryaspor Uygun was capped 32 times for various Turkish national youth teams. When the youngster realised that his playing time with Sakaryaspor was limited, he transferred to Ankara Şekerspor, when he was 17. After one year at Ankara, he moved on again to Kocaelispor in 1989. This is the club at which he truly begun to shine.

Uygun became the conductor of Kocaelispor’s successful orchestra between 1989 and 1993. In the 1992/1993 season, when Kocaelispor played very good football and finished the year at the top of the table he scored seven goals. When he learnt that Fenerbahce wanted to buy him at the end of the season, he didn’t give 100% and his performances tailed off, the reason for this is that Uygun was desperate not to be injured and put his transfer at risk,-he made this confession years later. Partly through this Kocaelispor lost the chance to be champions for that season and finished the table in 4th position.

After he transferred to Fenerbahce with his speed, dribbling ability and cool finishing in front of goal, he scored 22 goals for that season and became the top scorer in the Super Lig. He was the first top scorer to be anything other than a striker. During this season he also became well known for an unusual goal celebration, the salute of a soldier.

Uygun’s career at Fenerbahce ended in the middle of the 1996/1997 season when then president Ali Sen decided he wasn’t able to reproduce his form of old for the side. In later years Ali Sen would admit that this decision was the worst mistake of his period in office.

Bulent returned to perhaps his first love Kocaelispor; however fate was not kind to him and hopes of recapturing the form of his earlier spell at the club were quickly ended with a broken leg picked up in his very first game.

Afterwards he was never the same player for Kocaelispor and continued his career as a journeyman player, playing successively for Çanakkale Dardanelspor, Trabzonspor, Göztepe, Zonguldakspor, Kilimli Belediyespor and Anadolu Üsküdar 1908. In his last season he played at Sivasspor, where he finished his career as a professional football player in 2004.

After his playing career ended he started to work at Sivasspor as Executive Manager, a role he performed for 3½ years. In 2007 he took the control of the team as Technical Director-Manager in the 12th week of the season and immediately enjoyed success with victory against Besiktas. He finished his first season with Sivasspor in 7th place, quite an achievement considering he took control of the team when they were rooted to the bottom of the Super Lig.

The following season saw Sivasspor begin with a series of impressive home performances. After the first period of the league Sivasspor were amazingly at the top of the table. After this success everybody started to believe that Sivasspor could even win the title.

Despite this progress Uygun constantly changed his opinion as to whether the side could win the title from game to game. He himself seemed shocked by their performances and continual victories. The side though suffered a wake-up call when they lined up against Fenerbahce at home. A good performance from the visitors saw Sivasspor crushed 4-1. Until this game Sivasspor had been unbeatable at home and everybody believed that at least they could take one point from the game. But Bülent Uygun appeared to get his tactics wrong, failing to motivate the side and failing to deflect the focus from his side by making many many statements before the game to the press.

However in the coming weeks Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas all dropped points. Once again Sivasspor could win the title, this despite losses at home to Fenerbahce and Beskitas (the visit of Galatasaray is to come).

The achievement of in keeping Sivasspor in the title race despite injuries to key players like Pini Balili lies with Bülent Uygun’s tactical knowledge. In the Turkish 4-4-2 magazine he says that to improve his management skills he slept in front of the door of Fatih Terim to talk about his experiences with the national team, Galatasaray, Fiorentina and Milan. Uygun further said that he adopted many of the training programs that he saw Terim use. He also talked with the Basketball manager Aydın Örs to learn about zonal marking, and driving a man behind the defence, and he says that he is not addicted to any tactical arrangement like 4-4-2, and always changes his tactics in every game to outwit the opposing team. But I have to say that he really failed in this regard against Fenerbahce because they didn’t play like they had played before and as a result didn’t get success.

Bülent Uygun’s success has really been based on waiting for the opposing team to make a mistake, and then counter-attacking with pace. It is a tribute to this hot property in Turkish management that Sivasspor are in the title race with just two games to go! If they can somehow manage to take the Super Lig championship it will be a very big success for Anatolian football, and of course Bülent Uygun.

Since Özhan Canaydın became the chairman of Turkish giants Galatasaray, he developed a habit of quickly blaming his coaches for any failure and fired them immediately.  This habit has continued to this day and veteran 73 year-old German coach Karl Heinz Feldkamp is the latest victim. (insidefutbol)

Even before Feldkamp officially signed with Galatasaray the Turkish football media began to criticise him because of his age and made repeated insinuations about his health. When he was the manager of Beşiktaş, the German left the team in the middle of the season because of heart problems. How could Galatasaray trust the old man’s health enough to hire him as their manager? That was the first criticisim the coach had to deal with. He had, unbelievably, also worked for just for 1 ½  seasons in the last 17 years, it was understandable the media also asked questions about whether he had lost his ability to coach a team.

So, from the very first moment he took his place in the dugout Feldkamp’s reign was beset by criticism. In his first game as manager Galatasaray won 4-0 at their Ali Sami Yen stadium. With this outstanding result the team brimmed with confidence and proceeded to go unbeaten until they met rivals Fenerbahce.

In the first period of the season Galatasaray lost just one game, and sat proudly on top of the Super Lig table. Everything looked fine when you looked at the statistics from the league, but in the UEFA Cup the team was going badly. Galatasaray is a team,which is accustomed to being the most successful Turkish team in Europe and the results gained in the early stages against weak teams did not satisfy the president, his administiration, or the fans.

With the winter break the transfer window opened and Feldkamp felt there was a desperate need for a defensive midfielder to be bought after the injury of Swedish national team captain Tobias Linderoth, in addition to an experienced goalkeeper. Defender Emre Güngör and midfielder Ahmed Barusso were the only players that arrived and this was despite the coach insisting at least four more should join the squad.

Without enough players arriving Feldkamp tried all of the remaining options available to him in many different positions. Despite this he couldn’t manage to find a formula to make the side stronger. For instance, as everybody knows Servet Çetin is a player who is strong and ambitious, but not technical. Due to the lack of an incoming defensive midfielder Servet was tried in this position, despite not being suited to it as he is a defender. Feldkamp also changed the positions of other players many times. He tried stiker Hasan Şaş, midfielders Ahmed Barusso and Barış Özbek as a right backs, forward Shabani Nonda as a playmaker and even Emre Güngör as a defensive midfielder, as he searched for new options. One time he made Serkan Çalık, a young talented forward, play as a sweeper for the last few minutes of a Turkish Cup Game against Fenerbahçe. All of this experimentation would be acceptable only in friendly games and in pre-season, not in the middle of a campaign to win the title.

After moving players from their natural and preferred positions it was understandable that many were not just upset, but even angry. When Adnan Polat had won the presidential elections in March (he was previously the vice-president and played a key role in bringing Feldkamp to Galatasaray) he arranged a one to one meeting with the players. What he heard was predictable. The players were unhappy they had been forced to play in unfamiliar positions. They felt it was unfair they should be criticised when they played poorly in a totally new position. The squad even went as far as saying Feldkamp was not managing the team well, and only without him could they be champions.

After this meeting Adnan Polat and Feldkamp held talks. In the conversation between them, Adnan Polat gave Kalli some advice about how to manage the team, but “Kalli” (Feldkamp’s nickname in Turkey) is not a coach that takes kindly to being told how to do his job. For him it was a sign the players had lost all confidence in him and after this meeting Feldkamp announced he was resigning. Feldkamp’s assistant left, too.

It is clear to me that Feldkamp was forced out, because Adnan Polat knew that by speaking directly to the players and then advising such a proud manager as Feldkamp how to do his job, he would react in only one way: to resign.

The situation is even stranger when the man who has just become president of Galatasaray, a man who trusts Feldkamp and was key to his appointment in the first place, forces him to leave the club almost as soon as he sits in the president’s chair. Adnan Polat had also said he wanted Feldkamp to take the position of Football Advisor to the Board when he finally stopped coaching.

All this shows that the new president doesn’t really have a plan for the future. This was further confirmed by the fact that so many managers, each with differing ideas on how to play the game, were contacted about taking over. For now the Turkish press believe that Dutchman Louis van Gaal may be next in line for the job.

The players contributed directly to the removal of Karl Heinz Feldkamp, and that is not a healthy sign for any club. However, the one positive is that now the players have no excuses left and those who did not enjoy life under Feldkamp can take pleasure in their football without him. Perhaps the relief felt by some after Feldkamp’s departure could provide the motivation to win both the Turkish Cup and, importantly, Super Lig. But if they could do this, the position, the effect of a manager will surely have to be questioned. Because if any team can be successful like this, why do they need a manager?