The Quiet Sorrow of the Yellow and Red

There was a time when our feet barely touched the ground walking into RAMS Park. The stands would rumble, and with every attack flowing towards the goal tens of thousands of hearts beat at once. In those days a title was a right, a habit, almost a law of nature. And now... now there is a bitterness I cannot quite describe before every match.

I look at the squad and feel the absence of familiar faces. Muslera's way of defending that goal like a fortress, the way Mertens touched the ball as if it were a celebration... There are players in place of the ones who left, of course, but football is not only names. That invisible bond, that spirit which makes a team a team, is not easily built. On the pitch I see the unease of a squad squeezed by the foreign-player rule all summer, broken up and now being put back together.

And there is the weight of that four-year chain of titles on our shoulders. Everyone expects the same from us again, but this time the road is steeper and the air is colder. Our rivals have got stronger while we are still searching for a new balance. A title this season will not be the comfortable walk of recent years; it will be a hard climb in which every point is earned with blood, sweat and patience. And to be honest, I am not as certain as I used to be that we will see the summit at the end of it.

And yet... and yet this shirt has a magic about it. If our throats still tighten singing that anthem on the hardest days, then hope is still burning like an ember under the ash. Maybe this will be the hardest season. Maybe our hearts will break many times over. But we stand by this team not in the good days — in exactly these dark ones.

Because loving Galatasaray is not only loving to win. It also means reaching out a hand when they fall, and believing they can be put back together when they have come apart. Maybe we will not lift the trophy this season — but when that shirt is pulled on once more, we will be there again.