The Manager Who Resigned but Did Not Leave: Five Days at Fenerbahçe Since Roma

On the evening of 10 September, Kadıköy got the night it had waited seventeen years for. Fenerbahçe drew 1-1 with Roma in the first week of the Champions League league phase, and we assessed that match separately. But the scoreline was not what stayed in the memory. At the post-match press conference İsmail Kartal announced his resignation: he said he had been in the job for three months, that his work with the players and the board's support had been positive, and that he had taken the decision to clear the way for the club.

Five days have passed. Kartal is still in charge, Fenerbahçe have seven points from five weeks, and the club has in fact decided nothing.

Forty-eight hours: he left, he returned, he stayed

On 11 September Kartal did not take training; reports emerged that sporting director Oğuz Çetin wanted to speak with him. The same day the club announced that the manager remained in post and would take charge of preparations for the Gaziantep FK match. On 12 September Kartal was on the training pitch. So within forty-eight hours a manager resigned, was persuaded, and went back to work.

On paper that is a crisis resolved. On the pitch it usually works the other way. A man who says "I am leaving to clear the way for the club" then staying at that club diminishes the weight of the sentence and the weight of the job. And the bill for that is paid not in the boardroom but in the dressing room: players start wondering all over again, after every poor result, whether their manager will still be there.

Names filled the vacuum

In that narrow window between the resignation and the return, three managerial names entered the Fenerbahçe agenda at once: Antonio Conte, Vincenzo Italiano and Bülent Uygun. FutbolRadar has not processed any of these reports as verified information; all of them carry the "press report" label, because no official statement came from the club or from the other parties. Keeping that distinction is our job.

But what matters here is not whether each name is accurate, it is that the list exists at all. A list like that does not form around a club whose manager is settled. The list shows that the decision has not been taken.

Former players, former managers

In assessments carried by the press it was suggested that Kartal had struggled with squad planning after the departures of Fred and Talisca, and that he had not received the backing he expected from the board in the face of criticism from former players. Ersun Yanal criticised the resignation in strong terms; Serdar Dursun's line that "İsmail Kartal's hands are tied" made the headlines. All of these remain at the level of claims — but they all point to the same place: the manager felt alone, and he was the first to say so.

At Gaziantep, the scoreboard spoke

Monday 14 September, Gaziantep Stadium: 0-0. Fenerbahçe had scored in all four of their previous league matches — one away at Gençlerbirliği, four against Konyaspor, two away at Samsunspor, one in the Beşiktaş derby. At Gaziantep they did not find the net across ninety minutes. Home manager Memik Yılmaz's line that "the point we took is very valuable" says more than enough about what the match meant to each side.

The match report is still waiting on the provider's statistical breakdown; there is no goal time and no shot distribution. But you do not need statistics to interpret a 0-0.

The five-week table

Five weeks of the Süper Lig are behind us. When the fifth round had been played the table read: Fenerbahçe on seven points from two wins, one draw and two defeats; Galatasaray top on thirteen, Beşiktaş on twelve. In other words, the yellow-and-navies are six points behind the leaders in the middle of September. Against eight goals scored they have conceded six. In Europe they sit twentieth of thirty-six teams in the Champions League league phase with one point.

On the way back from Gaziantep, Kartal answered questions about the points gap and about refereeing. That these are a manager's agenda items in matchweek five tells you on its own what ground this season is standing on.

What did Roma do in the same five days?

Roma, who left Kadıköy with a point, won 2-0 away at Torino by the end of those five days and held their place at the top of Serie A. Fenerbahçe, over the same stretch of calendar, had a press conference, a resignation, a round of persuasion and a 0-0. The difference between them is not a difference in squad quality; the question is what the five days were spent on.

The real question

The real question is not "will İsmail Kartal stay?" The real question is this: has Fenerbahçe made a decision?

A resignation withdrawn is not a decision, it is a decision deferred. The club has two honest roads in front of it. Either it shows that it stands fully behind its manager — through squad planning, through its communication, through how it answers criticism; or it makes the separation cleanly, on time and of its own volition. The third road, "carry on for now", regenerates the same question after every match, and the players are the ones left having to answer it every time.

The coming fixtures will not wait. One point in the first week back on a stage reached after seventeen years, seven points from five weeks in the league, and a manager who has withdrawn his resignation. None of those is a disaster on its own. All three together describe not a club's direction but its search for one. The first thing Fenerbahçe have to solve this season is not Roma and not Gaziantep: it is their own indecision.

*This is an opinion column: it contains judgement. Scores and points are taken from FutbolRadar's verified match data with the fifth-round results processed; because the official table is synchronised hourly from the provider, you may see a brief discrepancy with the linked standings. The claims regarding managerial candidates are at the level of press reports and have not been confirmed by official statement.*