As an experienced football player who played in various football clubs for 20 years, you continued your career as an Assistant Coach in Mersin Erdemli Men's A Team. Afterwards, you were invited to the UEFA B License and you successfully passed the training and exams and were entitled to receive your certificate. Can you tell us a little bit about how you have progressed in terms of personal and professional development since our last interview a few years ago?
After our last interview with you, I completed the season at Erdemli Belediyespor and focused on training for the UEFA B diploma. I aimed to get some preliminary information about the training from my trainer friends who had gone to the training before, and by working in that direction, I aimed to be at least somewhat ready for the training. With the start of UEFA B training, a new adventure actually started for me. The training consisted of approximately 11 months and 2 stages, in-field practices and zoom training, 1. We were asked to prepare assignments between the first stage and the second stage. After the first stage, we also had an internship period. They wanted us to do an internship in any club on the subjects they wanted to teach us in education. The thing that made me feel the luckiest happened here. Atakaş Hatay Sports opened its doors to me. I had the opportunity to meet valuable Coaches such as Özhan Pulat, Rıza Çalımbay and Murat Şahin and their team and complete my internship process. They helped me a lot in terms of seeing my shortcomings and improving myself towards them. I would like to thank both the Atakaş Hatay Sports family and my valuable teachers for their support through you.
What was your motivation for deciding on UEFA B Undergraduate education? What were the most challenging and enjoyable moments during this difficult process?
Actually, we decided this during our football days. I say we decided because many of the dreams of our generation in women's football were left unfinished. Even though we always tried to do the best under the conditions of that time, we all had unfinished stories within us... We are trying to complete that story as a Coach, Assistant Coach, Analyst, Athletic Performer, what we could not do as a football player. Coming to the challenging part in terms of training, in the first few days of the training, the terms used in today's football were very different from our football days and we had to get used to the 'new football language'. Finding solutions to the group assignments given to us by our instructors in a very short time and trying to teach us group work and stress management in the presentation part were challenging for us at first, but they helped us improve this aspect day by day. They were getting you used to competing with yourself and other groups every day. The most enjoyable part is having the opportunity to learn and practice different things every day of the training. Holding education-related competitions allows you to see your shortcomings while competing. As a result, day after day, feeling like you are not the same person as before and a full development process. This process gives you one of the most amazing feelings in your favorite job.
What are your observations about coach training in Türkiye? What do you think are the aspects that need improvement?
Since I have training certificates in several different branches, I can say that the longest training process is the one carried out by the football federation. During this process, coaches are given a lot of training such as on-field and off-field practices, theoretical knowledge, use of technology, new football language, athletic performance, preparing and making presentations, and stress management. All of these trainings are valuable, but there is a missing aspect, and I think this should be solved first. The federation should provide the opportunity for every coach who attends this training to do internship in professional teams during the internship period. They can make agreements with the clubs in this direction, and it is very important that their coaches also assist the coach candidates in this regard. Another thing that needs to be done is that the federation should provide training from time to time to improve the coaches and keep them up to date. This is a really important and missing point.
Regarding your experience of working with Rıza Çalımbay, Özhan Pulat and Murat Şahin, you had the opportunity to work with these three important coaches at Atakaş Hatay Spor. Can you compare the work discipline, game philosophy and management style of each of them?
It was one of the periods when I felt the luckiest, and I know that it is the dream of many Coaches and Trainer candidates to have such an opportunity in their self-improvement process, and I am glad I got this opportunity. From that moment on, the only thing I thought was that whatever I could learn would benefit me a lot and that I would definitely need it one day. Another point where I was lucky was that it was very nice to be able to watch the work of our teacher Rıza Çalımbay, both in terms of experience and traditional football, and to look at today's football from the perspective of our teachers Özhan Pulat and Murat Şahin... In fact, it would not be wrong to say that I was like in a time warp, because on the one hand, we have one of the oldest and most experienced coaches in the history of Turkish football, like our teacher Rıza Çalımbay, and on the other hand, we have two young coaches who train with new methods and scientific studies in today's football. How the training methods used in Turkish football have come a long way in today's football. It allowed me to see what he had achieved... While our teacher Rıza Çalımbay was following a training method that progressed in line with his past experiences.Our teachers Özhan Pulat and Murat Şahin were training us in line with a more scientific and analytical working system, in line with the time and conditions they were in. If you are a football player playing in the professional league, discipline is a must. Everything starts with discipline and progresses in a disciplined way. While our coach Rıza made touches with more experience during the match, the first thing that caught my attention was that our coach Özhan and Murat made touches by sticking to the opponent analysis studies they did during the week. That's why I always had the opportunity to compare traditional football with today's football.
What did interning with an experienced name like Özhan Pulat bring to you? What was his most striking feature "from an assistant's perspective"?
First of all, I would like to write his name in capital letters 'ÖZHAN PULAT' and HIS VALUABLE TEAM This team taught me such things that they laid the foundation of my education. I was very lucky because I was embraced by a coach and his team who valued female coaches and wanted their numbers to increase. No matter what you lack in any subject, me and my team are here, a team that says ask what you want over and over again and we will explain it to you patiently until you learn it. They gave me the opportunity to learn everything about the things I should pay attention to in terms of athletic performance. There was a side of my teacher Özhan Pulat that surprised me every day and made me watch with admiration and curiosity... Last season, he came to Hatayspor at such a time that there was a group of wreckers in front of him and almost everyone was looking at the team as if they had fallen. Under those conditions, it took great courage to come to a team that was on the relegation zone of the league and say that I will keep this team in the league. The day after I met Özhan teacher, he turned to me and said, "Never forget what I said. Before I came here, I visited Hatay and chatted with people. The only thing they held on to after the earthquake was HATAY SPORTS AND THIS TEAM WILL STAY IN THE LEAGUE." .Some days they didn't sleep at all as a team, some days they only had a few hours of sleep.They conducted continuous competitor analyses. They made one-on-one football player interviews and brought the training to an environment where they could have fun and relieve their stress. We should make the people in Hatay happy in every training, you are the only hope of that city, your dream is given to the players, and psychologically, it was constantly processing the football players. In the part of analyzing the opposing team, there was an analysis ability that surprised me so much, there was a position during the match, he immediately had his eye on it.
In your ongoing work with Murat Şahin, how do you interpret the dynamics required by today's football?
With the increase in the use of technology compared to the past, today's football has entered into an understanding that physical capacities (power and speed ), where there is more tactical data, can be measured and taken up, as well as analyzes. Thus, it has become a situation where coaches try different transition games by adhering to the systems, all of which have raised the level of football...
How would you describe your understanding of play as a coach? What systems or tactical approaches excite you?
Your system is shaped according to the current group of players you have. Being able to analyze the pros and cons of your group of players well helps you impose the right system on the team. Although my own understanding of the game is based on having the ball, it may vary according to each match. Rather, an understanding of offensive weight gives me pleasure. If I have the right player structure, the 3-5-2 system is an ideal system for my understanding. G
What are your recommendations to young female coach candidates for the development of Turkish football? What do you think is missing in the discovery of local talents?
First of all, they should ask themselves which league and which age group is the current audience they want to work with. Because the training methods will vary according to the age group and league they will employ. According to the answer they received, it is very important to constantly follow the training activities carried out in today's football and apply them on the field. A person who wants to be a good coach in today's football must constantly improve himself/herself and have an up-to-date attitude.Unfortunately, our shortcoming in terms of the quality of infrastructure coaches is that it inevitably prevents a child from being trained correctly in football, and perhaps a child who can be a star disappears without being discovered. Super league teams conducting scans in lower age groups more frequently. It is very important for the football federation to discover talented players by organizing tournaments for children and regional camps.
How do you evaluate the team's identity reflected on the field during your internship at Atakaş Hatay Spor? How has the fan's energy been reflected in your work?
Since I knew the Atakaş Hatay Sports community immediately after the earthquake process, I witnessed its transition to a team that was a little more shaken and focused towards the end of the league last year while being a dull team due to the more emotional and bad process on and off the field in the early days. This season, they have made a more positive start to the league with more energy, but sometimes things can not go as desired, unfortunately, this is not the case in football.
What do you dream of achieving in your coaching career? For example, do you have overseas experience or first league, Super league goals?
My goals include the women's super league and the men's super league, so I am trying to improve myself for both the men's and women's leagues. That is why I worked for the Erdemli Belediyespor Men's team. The fact that I had the opportunity to do an internship in the Hatay sports team actually caused me not to keep my goals high in this direction… But in order to achieve the best, we must knead in the most difficult processes first and we cannot run without crawling. Both in the men's super league and the women's
What makes you different from other coach candidates? (For example: leadership, analytical thinking, communication skills)
My leadership trait is that I don't like to work and improve myself. That's why working with such actors has always made me happy. The best leader is the one who acts according to the group dynamics he/she will dominate. Of course, I think I am different at this point, which is the ideal democratic leadership. I think it is more appropriate for me to act according to the group I address with a student-centered approach.
What hobbies or interests other than football motivate you? Are you interested in areas such as sports psychology or data analysis?
In addition to football, I also received athletics coaching training, and I did this because it supports the training methods used in football. I also follow the athletics branch and training methods. I have a few friends who are sports psychologists, and we get together with them occasionally and have conversations about athlete psychology, which contributes to me in analyzing the football player. Experience about the use of GPS in the data analysis section during my internship period
What do you think are the biggest obstacles for young female coaches in Turkey? Is the support of football federations sufficient?
In the past, whether you were a female football player or a female coach, we were ignored and ignored. I think that social patterns, occupational preferences, occupations according to women compared to men, and thoughts about them gradually changed. At this point, our country receives support from Uefa for the development of female coaches, and as a result of this support, it allows female coaches to be more easily included in the coach development program. My opinion on this is that women's training
What do you think about the contribution of foreign coaches to Turkish football? What should be done to make local coaches stand out?
Of course, foreign coaches contribute to our country, in different understanding, the fact that coaches from different cultures take part in our country, in the name of contemporary coaching, they do not mean that they are good in us, but that our teachers work in different countries will contribute to the teams of that country... The priority of managerial trust in local coaches is definitely
