Rıza Çalımbay


Rıza Çalımbay is a Turkish football manager and former player who is currently the manager of Sivasspor. He was one of the symbol names of Beşiktaş and was among the best players of his time. Because of his determination and hard work he was nicknamed Atom Ant.

Career

Playing career

Born in Sivas, Turkey, Çalımbay started playing football in Beşiktaş academy. He debuted with the Beşiktaş first team in 1980–81 season. Until his retirement in 1995–96 season., he played only for Beşiktaş, and for the Turkey national football team, although he played in the UNICEF-world team against Germany and caught the eye of many clubs like Marseille but Çalımbay would not leave Beşiktaş. He played 494 league games for Beşiktaş and scored 43 goals. He is the most capped player for Beşiktaş. He was also the captain of the team. He also played 38 times for Turkey.

Managerial career

After retiring from football, Çalımbay took manager courses in England. In 2001, he became the assistant manager for Christoph Daum at Beşiktaş but after a short time he resigned, and became the manager of Göztepe, Denizlispor and Çaykur Rizespor. He was especially successful at Denizlispor, leading the team to latter stages in the 2002–03 UEFA Cup season eliminating teams like Sparta Prague and the mighty Olympique Lyonnais side of Paul Le Guen. The Porto side of José Mourinho ended the UEFA Cup dreams of Denizlispor and Çalımbay after an 8–3 win on aggregate. In 2004–05 season, he became the manager of Beşiktaş after Vicente Del Bosque was sacked. That season Beşiktaş was having really bad results and the squad was in a bad mood. But after Çalımbay took control the team started to perform really well. Çalımbay changed the system back to a 3–5–2 formation the usual formation and began playing good football he also picked a 4–3 win over rivals Fenerbahçe in the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium. However in the 2005–06 season, Beşiktaş was performing bad once again, Despite 2005–06 UEFA Cup wins against FC Vaduz and Malmö FF a 1–2 home defeat by Fenerbahçe took the coach into troubled waters. Çalımbay resigned in the 9th week after a 0–0 draw against Kayserispor. Jean Tigana became the manager of Beşiktaş after him. He then coached Ankaraspor but resigned after a few matches. Çalımbay signed a 1.5 year contract with again Çaykur Rizespor, although he had options to coach abroad in Iran and Germany but he chose Çaykur Rizespor. He then coached respectively Eskişehirspor, Sivasspor, Çaykur Rizespor, Mersin İdmanyurdu and Kasımpaşa. On 10 October 2016 he signed a 2 year deal with Antalyaspor.

Career statistics

Player

Club

International

International goals

Career totals

Manager

Honours

Player honours

Beşiktaş

Records