Trabzonspor Support Tekke After Europa League Exit
Trabzonspor have turned down the resignation of head coach Fatih Tekke, choosing stability over shock after a bruising Europa League exit that cut deep into a club with far grander ambitions.
The Super Lig side were dismantled 4-0 by Ferencvaros in Hungary on Thursday night, a defeat that sealed a 5-0 loss on aggregate in the play-off round and ended their Europa League hopes before the group stage had even begun. For a team that spent the summer parading marquee signings and talking about a new era, the scoreline landed like a punch.
Tekke, who guided Trabzonspor to third place in Turkey last season, tried to walk away in the immediate aftermath. His resignation letter went in as emotions ran high.
By Friday morning, the club had pushed it straight back.
In a statement, Trabzonspor made it clear they viewed the 48-year-old’s decision as a reaction to the “intense emotional impact” of the European exit, not a considered judgment on his future. The message was blunt: Tekke stays. The project continues.
European setback, new European stage
The damage is done in the Europa League, but Trabzonspor’s continental season is not over. They drop into the Europa Conference League, where they will learn their six league-phase opponents on Friday.
It is not the platform they had in mind when they went shopping this summer. It is still a platform all the same. And with the names now in their dressing room, expectation will not soften just because the competition badge has changed.
Salah, Fabinho, Onana – a heavyweight rebuild
Trabzonspor have spent the off-season behaving like a club determined to smash through their own ceiling. They brought in Premier League winners Mohamed Salah and Fabinho, and welcomed Andre Onana back on loan from Manchester United.
Salah’s arrival, in particular, shook European football. At 34, and after mutually agreeing to end his contract at Liverpool last season, the Egypt forward chose Trabzonspor as his next step. It was a decision that stunned many, not least because he leaves Anfield as one of the club’s greatest ever goalscorers.
Only Ian Rush and Roger Hunt sit above him in Liverpool’s all-time scoring charts. Salah racked up 257 goals in 442 appearances after joining from Roma in 2017, driving Jürgen Klopp’s side through an era of titles and finals.
Now he is the face of a different project, in a different shade of red and blue, on the shores of the Black Sea.
A glimpse of what could be
The first signs of his impact came quickly. Salah scored his first two goals for Trabzonspor in a 2-1 league win over Istanbul Basaksehir on Saturday, a reminder that his instincts in front of goal have not dulled.
That performance briefly lit up the mood around the club. Then Ferencvaros extinguished it.
The contrast is stark: a club unveiling star names and celebrating a match-winning debut one weekend, then absorbing a 5-0 aggregate beating in Europe the next. That kind of swing tests a dressing room, a coach, and a boardroom.
Trabzonspor’s hierarchy have made their first big call of the season by backing Tekke instead of bowing to the noise of a bad night.
The question now is whether that show of faith, combined with the weight of Salah’s goals and the experience of Fabinho and Onana, can drag this shaken squad from early embarrassment into something resembling the bold new chapter they thought they were writing.
