Help please: information about Murat Yakin

[ivan-spartakfan]

Hi everyone,

I'm a new guy here, a huge fan of Spartak Moscow, currently living in the US and doing my PhD in Economics at Stanford. As you might know, we have hired Yakin as our new head coach. Unfortunately, there is very little information about his coaching style available in Russian or English, and I don't know German well enough to read this forum (and Google Translate does not help much).

Could you please share with me some information about Yakin based on your experience of having him as a head coach? Was he a step forward for Basel? Are you happy that he has left your club and why? Any details about his tactics, relationships with players/club owners and managers/fans? Or just anything you find interesting?

Thank you very much, and good luck to Switzerland tomorrow (or today, since it's already Tuesday in Europe)!

[Bündner]

When he was a player, he was a inside linebacker. Also as coach the defense is important for him. And he likes the defense midfield. In Basel he had 5 players for this position.
The result is a defense game and it sheens, that he doesn't gives instructions for the offensiv. The game in the offense is based on the efforts of grassroots players.
In the last championship he played 15 times remis and the football was almost borring. But he wons two times the championship and won in europa against strongly teams, like Chelsea, Tottenham, Zenit St. Peterburg.

[heisser drnoo]

he is a special one. in 2 years you knwo what i would say with this

[Konter]

I liked Yakin, but many people in here had problems with him, because of his defense game and also his attitude against the media (emotionless and with confusing sentences). So be careful with what you hear in here, because some people will be not really fair-minded in giving information about his training skills.

But related to the tactic Bündner summarized it well. In addition you can say, that he was kinda better in playing against strong teams (like Chelsea, Tottenham, Zenit, Valencia), who played very aggressive and offensive, but had sometimes problems playing against teams who had a very defensive strategy (which is almost every team in our championship when they play against Basel). That is one reason why we played 15 times remis this year.

Since Basel played very successful in the past years you cannot really say that he was an improvement in our league (Super League). In his 18 months he won the championship two times, but the coaches before him also won the championship every year (this is our 5th championship in a row). There're people who say, that we won this championship not because of Yakin but despite of him, but this is bullshit. That we played not really strong this season was in my opinion also because we had many injured.

But internationally i believe he brought us a step further, because (like I said) he was good in preparing the team in playing against a stronger oppnent. In his era we qualified once for the Championsleague groupe stage and two times for Europa League: (once ended in the quarter-final, and once in semi-final, which was one of the greatest goals we achieved internationally)

His relationship with the club owner and the players wasn't really good. There were some players who had problems with him and complained about him in the media, which brought a lot of disturbance in the club. This was probably the main reason why Yakin had to go, because the club wanted this disturbance to go away and the most easy thing you can do is fire the coach.

The relationship to us fans wasn't really intensive. As I said he is more a cold and distant person.

And also good luck to the USA (if you are for them )

[Trekbebbi]

+ He's a good analyst when it comes to a game against a (actually) much better team. He discovers the weak points and can adjust the system to this.
- He's not flexible with his system. Like already mentioned above, he plays safety first. He doesn't seem to be able to rearrange the system, when we were the favorite team. No matter, if we were playing against a much stronger or a much weaker team, his system is 4-1-4-1. If you've got more than two strikers in your team, you can easily sell the others.
- He seems to have several problems with the communication within the team and staff. This probably wouldn't work better when working in a foreign country with foreign languages...

[Bündner]

Communication: He is a young coach and played about several players from Basel in his active time by Basel and Switzerland. About this players he had problems of communication and to say, who is the chief!

[LaFamigliaCrew]

His mother drive a Dreyrad and his brother has many children...

[THOR29]

His mother drive a Dreyrad and his brother has many children...

And she brings him his zNüni at the Spielfeldrand!

[heisser drnoo]

he is our "edeltürk"

[Intihuasi]

Yakin comes from Basel, and he polarized people into hating or loving him ever since. You won't get a good picture of him in this forum, I believe.

Yakin himself said, that his team plays "realistic results oriented football". With that, I think he summarized very well what you can expect from him. If you want your team to win, then you will be happy with him. If you want your team to kick the other teams butts, you might be disappointed. Defense is king, winning by one goal more than enough. He was very successful here in Basel, winning the championship two times in a row, and bringing our team to the EL semi and quarter finals. Still many people are happy he left and are looking forward to more attractive football in the future.

Hope that helps

[Trekbebbi]

Yakin comes from Basel, and he polarized people into hating or loving him ever since. You won't get a good picture of him in this forum, I believe.

Yakin himself said, that his team plays "realistic results oriented football". With that, I think he summarized very well what you can expect from him. If you want your team not to lose, then you will be happy with him. If you want your team to kick the other teams butts, you might be disappointed. Defense is king, winning by one goal more than enough. He was very successful here in Basel, winning the championship two times in a row, and bringing our team to the EL semi and quarter finals. Still many people are happy he left and are looking forward to more attractive football in the future.

Hope that helps

Little correction...

[Cocolores]

His Mentor was Christian Gross. The guy in the middle. On the left side you see his brother.

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CL 2002 Fc Basel - Spartak Moskau 2:0 (1:0 Hakan Yakin)

[video=youtube;tZfRr1BgH7Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZfRr1BgH7Y[/video]