Yusuf Şimşek

Yusuf Şimşek

Şimşek in 2009
Personal information
Date of birth	(1975-07-20) July 20, 1975
Place of birth	Antalya, Turkey
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Position(s)	Attacking midfielder
Team information
Current team	Adanaspor (head coach)
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1996–2000	Kemerspor	28	(6)
2000–2002	Denizlispor	82	(39)
2002–2004	Fenerbahçe	89	(9)
2004	→ Gaziantepspor (loan)	26	(4)
2004–2005	Ankaraspor	20	(0)
2004–2005	Akçaabat Sebatspor	21	(3)
2005–2008	Denizlispor	89	(16)
2008–2009	Bursaspor	10	(0)
2009–2011	Beşiktaş	42	(7)
2011	Kayseri Erciyesspor	10	(0)
2011–2012	Turgutluspor	8	(3)
Total		425	(87)
International career
2007–2009	Turkey	6	(0)
Managerial career
2011–2012	Turgutluspor (Player / Manager)
2012–2013	Denizlispor
2014	Karşıyaka
2015	Antalyaspor
2016	Karşıyaka
2016–2017	Mersin İdmanyurdu
2017	Denizlispor
2018	Fatih Karagümrük
2019	Afjet Afyonspor
2020	Balıkesirspor
2021	Balıkesirspor
2022	1461 Trabzon
2022	Isparta 32
2022–2023	Çorluspor 1947
2023–2024	Altay
2024	Bandırmaspor
2024–	Adanaspor
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Yusuf Şimşek (born July 20, 1975) is a Turkish football manager and former player. He is the manager of Adanaspor.

Club career

Fenerbahçe SK

During his time at Fenerbahçe, his teammate Ariel Ortega once highlighted Yusuf's incredible talent with the ball: "This guy could get past a man even in a phone booth".

Later career and Beşiktaş J.K.

As a player with a background in Denizlispor for 4 seasons, in Fenerbahçe S.K. for 2 seasons and in many other Anatolian squads including Ankaraspor, Bursaspor, Yusuf's transition to Beşiktaş J.K. stirred the football community. It was claimed that Trabzonspor made a proposal for Yusuf long before Beşiktaş did, and further that both Bursaspor and Yusuf himself accepted the formal offer that Trabzonspor made. However, that claim was not verified. Actually, Trabzonspor's offer included a part-exchange deal sending Adnan Güngör to Bursaspor; but the deal went off when Adnan refused to exchange teams. Then after Mustafa Denizli's persistence for an efficient playmaker, Yusuf was transferred to Beşiktaş J.K., for a part-exchange deal including Tuna Üzümcü plus 400k euro.

Following the accusations directed by Fenerbahçe and Trabzonspor supporters, which were mainly centered on "betrayal", Yusuf felt the need to make it public that he had always been a Beşiktaş J.K. fan, displaying a childhood photograph where he could be seen in a striped black&white jersey. He further stated that he was deeply affected by the legendary era between early 80s-mid 90s under the helm of Gordon Milne, which includes successive title achievements.

The transfer was severely criticized in Beşiktaş J.K. community as well, due to exchanging 2 promising youngsters for an aging player. In such a harsh climate, where even Beşiktaş board could not give a solid vote for him, he immediately assumed the role of a playmaker, and became one of the key players carrying the team through the way to 2 most important trophies of Turkish football in 2008/09 season. Although his teammate Matias Delgado did not have any real competition for the attacking midfielder position for 2 years up until then, Yusuf was quick to take up the position from his hands. For the 2008/09 season, he made 27 league apps (10 with Bursaspor, 17 with Beşiktaş) and 6 Fortis Turkish Cup apps (all with Beşiktaş); scoring 5 goals at total (3 league goals/2 cup goals; all for Beşiktaş). He especially scored crucial goals against arch-rivals Galatasaray (in league) and Fenerbahçe (in Türkiye Kupası 2008–09 final) as the finals for both competitions draw near.

Kayseri Erciyesspor

On 18 January 2011, Yusuf signed a two-year contract to the Kayseri Erciyesspor. As of 2016, he was playing for Turgutluspor in the TFF Sportoto 2. Lig.

International career

Despite his vast technical capacity and high ball possession skills, unique shuffles, feints and dribbles, Yusuf was able to attain a fame throughout Turkey in his late 20s. Due to playing his most remarkable games through the ages of 26–33, and with the addition of a playing style that is generally labeled as "selfish", he has been called up to national squad only for 6 times. Mainly because of that reason, this right-sided attacking midfielder has been generally the second pick for Fatih Terim as the former head of National Squad, just like his current coach Mustafa Denizli.

Managerial statistics

As of 25 October 2015

Team	From	To	Record
			G	W	D	L	Win %
Denizlispor	2012	2013	9	4	2	3	044.44
Karşıyaka	2013	2014	38	16	8	14	042.11
Antalyaspor	2015	Present	24	12	6	6	050.00
Total			0	0	0	0	!—

External links

• TFF Profile (in Turkish)
• Yusuf Şimşek at National-Football-Teams.com
• Yusuf Şimşek – FIFA competition record (archived)