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On Saturday, I called Sanlı Çoban…
Sanlı is my first point of reference for ‘football in Kioneli’…
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“I’m picking some wild asparagus”, he said!
The matches were canceled due to rain…
Maybe some matches could have been canceled on Saturday, but the weather on Sunday was perfect!
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Sanlı brought me some wild asparagus for ‘a-fry-up’ on Sunday evening…
He described where he picked it from, so I said, “I’ll be there tomorrow,” and he left…
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My local football teams are very important to me…
In the worst case scenario—for instance—I wouldn’t want Kioneli, where I’ve been living for the past 10 years, to be relegated…
It would make me upset…
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Am I a supporter of Kioneli?
Identity!
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Sanlı inherited his ‘Kioneli identity’ from his father!
And his son Sergen, of course, from his grandfather!
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Kioneli is where the football legends live…
For example, every time I see Ali Çetin Amcaoğlu, I kiss his hand and I’m honoured to do it!
Recently, someone saw me do that and sent me a message calling me a ‘bootlicker’!
I asked, “Do you know who the man is whose hand I kissed?” He replied, “Isn’t he the father of the mayor (Hüseyin Amcaoğlu), the former minister, the UBP member?”!
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I also kiss Günay Caymaz’s hand every time I see him…
He’s also a member of UBP!
My fellow villager, my brother, Salih Tarcan, one of the legends of Yenicami; and Zihni Kalmaz, the iconic name in the country’s football!
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Identity and football!
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I spent my childhood and youth in the triangle of Kazivera-Lefka-Morphou…
They took Paphos, moved it to Morphou, and scattered the people of Paphos all over the country!
My late mother was from Paphos, but I became more familiar with the name Paphos in Morphou!
And I was such a big fan of Ertan Oyal from Kazivera, Paphos, and, truly one of the country’s legendary football names, that I developed a “fanatical Paphos identity”!
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And Kazivera!
The village where I was born!
The results that have devastated me, especially in the last two weeks!
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Even though the commentators of TRT called it ‘Paphos’ as it is referred to in the south, and even though its owners are wealthy Russians, such an identity has been created there that while this team is currently playing Champions League matches on the same level as Galatasaray, thousands of babies are being born in the Republic of Cyprus as ‘supporters of Paphos’!
President Christodoulides boasts about being a supporter of this team!
TRT is also broadcasting the Paphos-Chelsea match!
With the announcement, ‘Chelsea’s guest is Paphos’!
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Anyway!
Kioneli!
At least 100 people from Kioneli show up at every match of Kioneli, and I think half of them are Kioneli supporters since their grandfather’s time! (That’s a huge number)…
And I think that more than 90% of the population of Kioneli, which no one really knows about, has no idea about a football team called ‘Kioneli’, or even about our football league, which was postponed this weekend due to rain!
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Our league is named AKSA!
That’s a whole other topic of discussion, of course!
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In many countries, football is not just a sport, it’s a matter of identity.
In Brazil, football is a national religion!
People play football on the streets, on the beach, everywhere.
No Brazilian is unaware of the name Pel—no Brazilian is not proud of this name!
It is the country that has won the World Cup the most (5 times).
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Argentina!
It is home to such icons like Maradona and Messi… The Boca Juniors – River Plate derby is not a ‘match’, it’s a ‘war’!
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Turkey?
The world’s most emotional supporters are in Turkey!
Losing is death, winning is the greatest joy, and the Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş rivalry is ‘the agenda!’
Even if the country may burn, the Galatasaray-Fenerbahçe rivalry is the only item on the agenda!
This week, Göztepe ended up beating Fenerbahçe!
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Identity and football!
Football is the ‘point’ through which Turkey’s identity penetrates into the Turkish Cypriot community in the most impactful and effective way!
Sanlı Çoban is fanatical about Kioneli but his loyalty for Beşiktaş led him to name his son Sergen!
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Right now, I’m ‘super confident’ that if a survey were conducted in the TRNC and the ridiculous question of “Which team do you support?” was asked, all Turkish-speaking residents of Northern Cyprus would, without exception, name a Turkish team!
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Even the most fanatical locals of Famagusta, the most passionate locals of Dumlupınar; even the President of Doğan Türk Birliği, Bayar Piskobulu…
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By the way, as his name suggests, President Bayar is from Episkopi on his father’s side!
On his mother’s side, he is from Polis!
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Ask the ‘unknown population’ living in the TRNC one by one; again, I am super confident that 99% of this population does not know where ‘Episkopi’ is, and I am also sure that they have never heard of Polis!
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Modern football originated in England…
Even the smallest towns have clubs that are a hundred, or a hundred and fifty years old.
The Premier League is the most watched league in the world…
And in this country, ‘support for a team’ is inherited from your grandfather’s grandfather!
It involves a tremendous sense of belonging!
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In Germany, no match is played in an empty stadium…
The national team is known for its stability…
The mosaic of immigrants in the national team may not be as diverse as in France…
But whatever the case, in Germany, the ‘firm loyalty to the national team’ never wavers!
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In countries like Argentina, Turkey, and Brazil, derby day affects traffic, work schedules, and even wedding dates.
In these countries, children cannot pick a team…
Being a supporter is not something you pick; you are born into it.
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People say, “My grandfather was a Fenerbahçe supporter; so was my father, and so am I!”
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Country, city, neighborhood are very important!
This is our most serious shortcoming!
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Let me give you another example: the vast majority of people from Morphou who migrated from Paphos, currently live in Kioneli, Yenikent!
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If Kioneli manages to stay in the league this year, 95% of the ‘village’ won’t give a damn!
If Kioneli gets relegated, the same percentage of the Kioneli population won’t even hear about it!
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Let’s look at the Republic of Cyprus; Omonia, Apoel, and now Paphos…
Anorthosis, AEL, Nea Salamina…
Don’t forget Apollon and Olympiakos!
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Their joys and sorrows are shared; ours are not, my friends, that’s what I’m trying to say!
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Football emotions are experienced collectively.
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Boca Juniors – River Plate (Superclásico) is not just a match, the experience is like that of a war. The stands fill up before the season even starts, the city gets divided in two…
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Galatasaray – Fenerbahçe… Is it just football?
There is history, there is culture, even class perceptions are involved…
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If we rate the intensity of a rivalry between Omonia and Apoel on a scale of 100, with 65 being the highest intensity, the intensity level of such a rivalry in the TRNC right now would not even be half of that!
Our identity and sense of belonging are gone, destroyed, consumed through football!
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Which match results do we talk about for days, even weeks?
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An average of 10 fans currently attend the matches of our legendary Çetinkaya, the TMT Headquarter’s team!
And I’m sorry, but the percentage of ‘Cypriots’ who know the name Çetinkaya is less than 1 percent of our ‘unknown population’!
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The most ‘identity deprived’ development we have seen is that we have reached the level of ‘zero derbies’!
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Of course, I don’t expect it to be at the level of Inter – Milan (Derby della Madonnina); Barcelona – Real Madrid (El Clásico); Celtic – Rangers (Old Firm)!
But “even if it may be a thousand times less, let it be ours”; we don’t have a single derby left!
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Man, Doğan – Ocak derby is over; the topics currently being discussed on social media about the great Türk Ocağı Limasol club are disgusting!
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I’ve written about it many times before, I’ve warned you, I’ve said, “Please, it’s our last stronghold!”
The day our football is over, our ‘sense of belonging’ will be over!
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Even if we always lose, football is a source of hope and pride for communities; it is a ‘religion’ that creates a sense of ‘us’, a ‘passion’!
And it has been completely destroyed in our country; we are finished!
I’m sorry!
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COYS!
This is our only consolation!
This article was originbally published on 26.01.2026
Source: IF FOOTBALL IS OVER, WE’RE OUT!
