Football Season Guide

Hatay managed to promote to the Super League for the 1st time in their club history. They had been close to it in the previous season, but had eventually lost the play-off final against Gaziantep FK. Despite that, they did not lose their excitement and made it this season thanks to the great home performances: 12 clean sheets... However, the Super League is a very different level. Their current squad are far from the league’s quality. Mirkan Aydin, Gokhan Karadeniz and Selim Ilgaz held the whole offensive responsibility last season but it is not clear what they are going to do at top level against better backlines. The other departments should also be improved as soon as possible. At this point, the board’s capacity and actions will be decisive. When they parted company with coach Mehmet Altiparmak, who was the architect of their promotion, he reacted to them and said that “I hope I can work with executives who have goals, know to share the success which was reached under very difficult circumstances, respect all efforts and keep the club’s benefits over their personal ones”. In order to improve the team’s quality, they added Boupendza, Ribeiro and Pablo Santos who did not have a great last season. So it is obvious that they lack quality and depth at the moment. If they cannot manage to bring the necessary players, Omer Erdogan, who will have his 1st Super League experience as a head coach, will struggle a lot. They will have to play their home fixtures on a neutral venue till November, as their new stadium is not ready yet.