Fatih Karagümrük

In Istanbul's Fatih district, in the Karagümrük quarter, two neighbourhood youth groups — Acıçeşme Gençleri and Karagümrük Gençleri — merged under the push of local figures led by a man remembered as Muhtar Bey. The club that emerged in the spring of 1926, with Arnavut Fevzi Efendi as its first president, was named Karagümrük İdman Yurdu. Red and black came from the local tulumbacı, the volunteer firemen whose uniform was a red shirt over black shorts — colours the club still plays in as Kara Kırmızı.

Continuity has never been the club's strong point. It stopped operating in 1942 after losing its ground to Vefa SK, returned in 1946 as Karagümrük Gençlik Kulübü, and only took its present name, Fatih Karagümrük, in 1985. For most of that time home was the old Vefa Stadium, holding somewhere between 4,500 and 6,500; promotion to the Süper Lig forced a move to the Atatürk Olympic Stadium, built for a much bigger occasion and seating 77,563. The club has won the Istanbul Professional 2nd League in 1957-58, TFF 3. Lig twice, and TFF 1. Lig in 1982-83, up through play-offs in 2013-14 and 2018-19, then into the Süper Lig itself in 2019-20 and again in 2024-25. The Türkiye Kupası has never come its way; the nearest it got was a quarter-final in 1962-63.

One name outlasts all the divisional churn. Kadri Aytaç left Galatasaray for Karagümrük in 1958 for 57,500 lira. He captained the side through the years that followed and stayed the club's reference point long after he had stopped playing.

The 2020 promotion filled the same neighbourhood shirt with a squad it had never fielded before: Luca Biglia, once Milan's captain, Mehdi Benatia between spells at Juventus and Roma, and Ahmed Musa, Nigeria's all-time leading scorer, all arrived past their prime but still recognisable from European nights. Andrea Pirlo's short spell in the dugout added Davide Biraschi, Fabio Borini and Stefano Sturaro.