Trabzonspor and Drogheda United met in a Club Friendly on 1st October 2026, and the visitors took the win with a single goal. The match ended 1-0 to Drogheda United, with E. Agbaje finding the net in the 86th minute. By then, both sides had already made plenty of changes to their line-ups.
There were eleven substitutions in total across the game, though none of them led to a goal until the final stretch. The first came in the 17th minute when E. O'Brien was brought on for the visitors. Trabzonspor responded around half-time with four changes at the break — M. Mimaroglu, C. Canak, W. Davis and L. Burney all came off together.
What struck me watching was how the hosts dominated possession without really threatening. They held 63 per cent of the ball, made 566 passes compared to 324, and created three big chances. Yet when the game opened up late, it was the visitors who took their chance. To be fair, Drogheda had four big chances themselves and shot with more accuracy inside the box.
The statistics tell the fuller story. Trabzonspor recorded six shots on target against five for the visitors, but their expected goals figure of 1.44 didn't translate. Drogheda's expected goals sat at 1.27, and they converted one. The hosts made 132 passes into the final third while the visitors managed just 43 — numbers that suggest Trabzonspor were pushing forward without finding the right rhythm.
Both goalkeepers made four saves each, and neither side received a yellow card. The match ended with both teams having won 24 aerial duels, which says something about the physical nature of a friendly where players are still finding their feet. For the visitors, it added to a run that included a 2-1 win over Shelbourne and a 2-0 victory against Sligo Rovers.
What matters is that one moment decided everything. The rest was movement and testing, which is what you expect from a warm-up fixture. Trabzonspor will be weighing up what went wrong after a dominant display that produced nothing until the last minutes.
