ANATOLIAN EAGLE 100TH YEARS
Konyasport, which completed the season at 11th place with 50 points in 40 matches, is being prepared for its 100th year. Founded in 1922, Green&White Konyasport returned to the Super League in 2012-2013 and has been in the Super League since then. In the general meeting of the club in 2016, the foundation date was registered as 1922, so Konyasport will celebrate its 100th year anniversary next season. Previously known foundation date was 1981, but it was known to be given autocratically and was controversial for this reason. With the change done by Ahmet Şan, who was the chairman then, the foundation date was corrected as 1922 and registered.
THE COMBINATION OF 2 ECOLES
The historical journey of Konyasport, which is about to celebrate its 100th year anniversary, is quite controversial. Konya Gençlerbirliği was founded in 1922 and Konya İdman Yurdu was founded in 1923. They were rivals for long years as the two teams from the same city. In 1965, Turkish Football Federation had a policy about having only one strong team from a city, and this team was Konyasport formed by uniting teams such as Black&White Konya Gençlerbirliği, Meramsport, Selçuksport and Çimentosport. Konya İdman Yurdu didn’t accept to unite so the local rivalry continued. After the military coup in 1980, two teams were compelled to unite and with some changes the foundation date of Konya Gençlerbirliği was accepted as the foundation date of Konyasport.
NONSTOP 9 YEARS
Although Konyasport, which is going to celebrate its 100th year next season, seems to be a club that is inconsistent, during the last few years it has become one of the important teams in the Super League. They returned to the Super League in 2012-2013 and after that they had some successful places such as being the third and getting the Turkish Cup Championship. During these 9 years, although they sometimes were in dangerous places, they managed to get over it. The green&whites are going to be in their 9th season nonstop in the Super League during their 100th year.
THIS SEASON; PLACED AT 11
Konyasport completed the season at 11th place with 50 points in 40 matches. Konyasport ended up at place 11 with 50 points in 2020-2021. The green&whites had 12 wins, 14 draws and 14 defeats. They were able to score 49 goals and the rivals were able to score 48 goals in total. The team had 7 wins, 9 draws and 4 defeats in 20 matches at home. They had 5 wins, 5 draws and 10 defeats in 20 matches in away games. In total 40 matches, the forward player Kravets scored 9 goals, Cikalleshi scored 8 goals and Shengelia scored 5 goals and they became the most productive players for the team. On the other hand, Skubic was the player who played for the longest time in the Super League with 3 thousand 433 minutes in 39 matches.
THEY HAD A TROUBLESOME START
In the previous season, Konyasport miraculously managed to stay in the Super League. Although they tried to be precautious in order not to be troubled as before, they had devastating days just before the start. Bülent Korkmaz, the coach of the team then, quit because he didn’t like the transfers. The Anatolian Eagle had to start the league with this shock and they decided to go on with İsmail Kartal as the coach.
In the first half, Konyasport wasn’t able to get the results they wanted against the teams in the middle or last places. However, surprisingly they were able to get good results against the strong teams in the league. They were able to win the matches against Beşiktaş (4-1) which is the champion, Galatasaray (4-3) which has the second place, Fenerbahçe (2-0) which has the third place. Despite these successful matches, Konyasport completed the first half with 23 points.
CHANGE OF THE COACH
While they were having the fear of returning to the sub-league, Konyasport didn’t continue to work with İsmail Kartal and they went on with the coach İlhan Palut, who is a very young coach. The new coach brought an excitement to the team and started to win the games against some rival teams such as Yeni Malatya, Alanyaspor, Erzurumspor, Karagümrük and Göztepe. Although they lost the games against strong teams in the second half, Anatolian Eagle was able to finish the league without any problems and had the chance to be in Super League next year, in their 100th year anniversary.
SKUBIC: PLAYED THE LONGEST
In Konyasport, while some players were a disappointment, the others were really successful. Sokol Cikalleshi, who was the reason of Bülent Korkmaz’s resign at the beginning of the season, contributed more than expected with 8 scores and 3 assists. Ukrainian player Artem Kravets with 9 scores and 2 assists was a disappointment especially with his low performance in the second half although he was the best scorer in the team. Bosnia-herzogevinan player Amir Hadziahmetovic, who has been playing in the team for long years, Skubic, Ahmet Çalık, Abdülkerim and Guilherme were the names who were trustful during the games as the defence.
Slovenian player Nejc Skubic was the player who played for the longest time in the Super League with 3 thousand 433 minutes in 39 matches. Uğurcan Çakır in Trabzonsport and Günay Güvenç from Gaziantep were the players who played for the second longest time in the Super League with 3 thousand 420 minutes in 38 matches.
100TH YEAR: DO NOT RAISE ONE’S SIGHTS
On the contrary to the other big teams, Konyasport supporters do not have special success targets in the 100th year anniversary. It is not clear that they will be able to celebrate something due to the pandemic. The supporters of green&whites expect to have their team in the Super league, to watch young players during the matches and to see that the increasing debts of the club will decrease.
