Honestly the gulf in class against the other teams in the Turkish league was very obvious. There were only two draws that happened in the season. Those were to Galatasaray where we drew 1-1 and Basaksehir annoyingly which also was the same score(We are technically better than them in terms of team strength).
But with the crazy run we had we had an outside shot at the title but mainly a shot at the Champions League Qualifying stages:
I knew we lost too many games to ever mount a title challenge against the juggernaut that was Galatasaray so I was only trying to pip Fenerbahce to 2nd place which is a miracle given they were languishing in 12th when I came in.
And I thought getting a very unlikely win against Fener would be life changing where we actually surprised them out the blocks and had more chances before a final shot from a cross was headed home past freaking Ederson.
Then the Turkish Cup was happening too where we had 2 jaw dropping results but they do need to have an asterisk because there were large injury crises for the teams at that point for Besiktas and Galatasaray.
First was Besiktas where it was just corner and pray and it worked better than expected:
Then it was a bunch of second tier teams before we had to face the behemoth themselves in Galatasaray but the games between threw them for a tailspin.
In the league however 2nd place came down to the wire and Fener were drawing their game and we were winning as per but after the result I saw the shock that they actually lost which meant: WE ARE IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE.
Again an asterisk here(Promise it’s the last one for now 😅). The way the Turkish League spots are like is that you only get to the qualifying rounds of the UEFA competitions. The only direct league spot that is guaranteed in Turkey is the Europa League. So with us finishing second we are in the Champions Path qualifying rounds where you face 3 rounds and going through all three of them will mean you’re in the Champions League.
But seeing how bad the injury crisis happened for said juggernaut(Cold virus plus league games took it out of them seriously), their squad depth was so shocking we…..annihilated them in the final winning 500 miles in a bit of an anti climax got to say.
Well it’s miles at the end of the day innit 😅.
In the end our lamp post wound up scoring flipping 40+ goals and won himself a new deal to boot as well.
But seriously all of this had me thinking. We could spend years trying to convince people to give a chance on Trabzonspor and given the level of talent that is already there in the giants such as Besiktas, Galatasaray and Fenerbahce I do not see a chance of breaking that dominance.
No big player also wants to take a chance here like those big players did for the big three so I don’t see a way of even winning a league title so it feels like a losing battle against their firepower.
So honestly after this asterisk filled Turkish Cup win, I knew I needed to find a surefire way to win trophies. Also you got to remember I reset the save so I don’t exactly have a “trophy record”(Even though I wish we included the other 5 trophies we won along this way).