Bakırlıoğlu and the Konak geometry

Okan Bakırlıoğlu views the football pitch as a series of geometry problems. At 49, the Konak manager has settled on the 3-5-2 as his primary solution. It is a system that demands a specific kind of aerobic capacity, the kind that usually leaves a player looking like they have just survived a shipwreck by the seventy minute mark.

He operates as a players-coach. This suggests a preference for the tactile over the theoretical, someone who would rather demonstrate a body position than describe it with a laser pointer. There is a certain quiet optimism in his approach. He believes in the collective, provided the collective is arranged in his precise five-man midfield.

The mandate for such a system is high. It requires wing-backs who can cover the distance from one penalty area to the other without pausing for breath. In practice, this often results in a tactical fluidity that can look, to the untrained eye, like a very organised panic. Bakırlıoğlu does not seem bothered by the aesthetic: he is concerned with the structure.

Interest from Istanbul usually follows a manager who can balance the books and the backline, though Bakırlıoğlu remains focused on the immediate requirements of Konak. There is little time for contemplation between matches in this league. One day you are admiring the symmetry of a 3-5-2, and the next you are wondering why your left-sided midfielder is standing in the centre circle. It is a fragile equilibrium. He manages it with the deadpan patience of someone who has seen every possible way a game can go wrong.