Aykut Kocaman And Average Football

When I was in the first year of university, my lecturer was saying something: “Average is your enemy.” There were a lot of times to think about it. If someone accepts the average, he can do with the bad one. Or the average hinders you to progress further. Why am I mentioning this? Today, I am going to talk about Fenerbahce’s manager Aykut Kocaman.

Fenerbahce was in Konya Buyuksehir Stadium to play against Konyaspor. The result was 1-1. It was difficult to understand FB’s football for me. Aykut Kocaman preferred to start with a squad without forward. This is something normal, but the opponent’s goal box was left empty by FB players except Giuliano. How can they have scored a goal?

Is football a game of cowards?

The title can be too harsh. Don’t let it be misunderstood! I don’t have any problem with Aykut Kocaman. His character is awesome. The problem is his football style. He has a defensive ecole. Probably he never accepts this claim. Then I am changing my words into I am not able to comprehend his football. Fenerbahce is not good at attack. There is no any plan to be creative in the final third. Personal effort is necessary to score goals. FB generally dominate the possession, but that doesn’t mean FB play like Manchester City and Napoli. This possession includes lots of horizontal passes.

At the beginning of the season, Aykut Kocaman made a statement. He said football is poisoned by the word “vertical game”. Then how can you score a goal? Kocaman answers me: “Organised chaos”. It reflects the pitch that FB’s players don’t get position rightly. For example, suddenly you can see 5-6 players on the right or the left flank, and FB try to attack in a very narrow area.

Some football romantics describe football as a battle. It is compulsory to have courage and intelligence. FB is neither an attacking team nor defensive team. When this is the case, nonsensical and coward football shows up.

Big Teams = Attack

In Turkey, people believe that a big team should play attack football. I think the reason is hidden under the Turkish culture. We generally look down on the opponent. Football fans know that Turkey (National Team) were eliminated by Latvia in 2004. In 2002 World Cup, Turkey became the third-place finisher, and before EURO 2004, we thought Latvian matches hade the game in our hand.

As a result, fans want to watch attack football. Till now, Kocaman has not given it to the fans. Average football hinders to progress further.