Kırklarelispor

Bilgin Erdem has coached Kırklarelispor across more spells than anyone else at the club, starting with the 2010–11 campaign that took the side up as 3. Lig champions, and returning again in 2015–16, 2016–17, 2018–23 and now for 2025–26. That kind of recurrence tells its own story about a club that has spent most of its life shuttling between the third and second tiers, dropping to the Amateur League in 1981–82, 1992–93 and 2002–03 and climbing back each time.

The bigger of the two league titles came in 1999–2000, when Kırklarelispor topped the 2. Lig, a season no coach is credited with in club records, as if the achievement belonged to the team alone. Among the players who have worn the green and white, Murat Baytaroğlu stands out as a Kırklareli native who left and came back in 2011 to play in midfield for his own city, while Davut Babur simply stayed the longest, making 269 appearances between 2014 and 2022.

The one run that carried the Kırklar name beyond Thrace came in the 2019–20 Ziraat Turkish Cup, when they knocked out MKE Ankaragücü and Gaziantep FK before Fenerbahçe ended it in the quarter-finals. Ernest Muçi played in that cup run before his career took him to Beşiktaş. Locally, none of that matters as much as Lüleburgazspor: meetings between the two are billed as the Thrace Derby, and it is that fixture, not the cup, that Kırklareli people wait for each season.

Kırklarelispor finished 11th in the White Group of the TFF 2. Lig in both 2023–24 and 2024–25, mid-table form that neither threatens relegation nor pushes for promotion, and it is that same modest stability the club carries into the new season under Erdem once again.