A LIFE WITHOUT PASSION... IT WOULD BE A BIT BORING, I THINK!

Let me continue serving "The Children of this Land".

I mentioned in my previous writing, my childhood was very beautiful.
Until the age of 18, except for the separation from my father due to football, everything was good.
I went fishing with my father, collected wild berries in the mountains...
I loved riding on the back of my uncle's Java motorcycle, going around...
I also missed the love my uncle showed me by making the most beautiful kite for me...
I had many days studying next to my father's rakı table at Kostağın Meyhanesi in Mezarlıkbaşı...
When I got accepted to METU (Middle East Technical University), my father was even happier than me, so I went to Ankara to make him proud...

At the age of 20, we became the Turkish Champions as the METU football team. We were on top of the world at school...
One evening, a phone call came: "Your father had a work accident, he got burned all over his body, come."

That day, my passionate years began...
It lasted until I turned 50... 30 years...
Always steel, always steel, always family, always family, occasionally football management...

After the age of 50, in order to add some "meaning" to my life or rather to "hold on" to life,
I charted a "path" for myself.
Something that everyone knows well, but no one is willing to take the lead on: "developing young football players"...

In the summer of 2006, I pressed the button for the system I had conceived in my mind.
Next to me was Professor Mustafa Ferit Acar, a sports professor.
One of the young coaches he brought along was Hüseyin Eroğlu...
2023 - 2006 = 17 years have passed...
In those 17 years, I had so many "companions on the journey" that if I tried to write about all of them, it would fill 10-15 pages.
We experienced so much that if I tried to write about it, it would turn into a 500-page novel...

In those 17 years, we became the team with the most "Top 3 Finishes" in the Turkish Academy Leagues after Galatasaray.
It started with Salih Uçan in 2012 and will end with Emircan Gürlük in 2023... It's been a process...
Our greatest pride is Çağlar and Cengiz... We have two lion-hearted young men in our National Team.
We have developed many "good players".
But most importantly, we have raised many "good human beings".

I believe I have left a mark, but the path I have taken has only been half of what I expected!
No one is to blame, it's just how time works!

I am now 68 years old...
It's time to ease off the accelerator a bit, not constantly push people forward, live a stress-free life like any retiree, with peace...
They call it "relaxing living", I guess...
I can't imagine myself and "relaxing" in the same sentence 😊...

A life without passion...
It would be a bit boring, I think.

I don't think I can live without passion.
I can't even manage to live without passion!

Let me continue serving "The Children of this Land".
Take the A team from me...

The professional football world in our country is not for me.
And I am not for the professional football world in our country either.

Let me continue serving "The Children of this Land".
Take the A team from me...

My path is clear: "The Children of this Land" until my last breath...
I have wonderful projects in mind for "The Children of this Land"...

We don't know how much time God will give us, but I want to spend my remaining years as beautifully as my childhood.
Take the A team from me...

Greetings, love, and respect...
Seyit Mehmet ÖZKAN