2020 was a different year for Turkey’s top-flight Süper Lig, to say the least. The coronavirus pandemic brought the league to a halt in the spring and introduced unprecedented changes once matches resumed.

Gone from the stands were the rowdy fans, leaving in their place an eerie silence that made watching the games on television all the stranger.

The matchdays changed, with fixtures now compressed into back-to-back matches that saw far too many players injured. The precautions to protect everyone on the pitch from being infected, while necessary, threatened to suck the joy out of the game. But the pandemic has failed to alter one Süper Lig tradition honored since the league’s formation in 1959 – the expendability of the coaches.

If there is one thing that will always be true for the Süper Lig, it is that nearly half the clubs will change coaches before the season is over. History proves it.

A quick look at the last 10 years of the league shows that of the 21 teams currently competing, a staggering 352 coaching changes were made in total, taking into account caretakers.

Looking closer at the data, Denizlispor emerges as the recipient of "The Süper Lig club that crushed the most coaches’ dreams award" for managing to go through 29 trainers over the past decade.

The defending champion, Başakşehir, has proven to be the most stable, having just seven coaches. But even that record pales in comparison to clubs in other European leagues.

Statistics can be scrutinized endlessly to predict the winning team, or worse, who will be relegated to the second-tier TFF 1. Lig, which the team’s own executives don’t even watch, although numbers can be proven wrong by the end of the season.

But betting on coaches being blamed at the first sign of trouble? That would yield dividends.

The top-flight has yet to disappoint in this competition. In just 15 weeks since the start of the new season, 10 coaches have lost their jobs.

The first

Antalyaspor’s Tamer Tuna was the first coach to part ways with his team this season, arriving at the Mediterranean club at the beginning of the year and leaving on Oct. 29.

Tuna’s departure was puzzling. Despite losing 5-1 to Başakşehir in his last match, Antalyaspor was in seventh place at the time of his exit. It is now in 15th place, just five points above the relegation zone.

Tuna’s tenure at Antalyaspor lasted 23 Süper Lig matches with 10 wins and four defeats on his final report card.

Two days later came the most sensational sacking of the season when Trabzonspor unceremoniously parted ways with Eddie Newton just seven matches after appointing him as head coach.

The club had so little to say when announcing Newton’s departure that it would make sense if it were revealed they were secretly trying to fit the statement into a single tweet.

While the sacking was swift, Newton wasn’t blameless as Trabzonspor was in the relegation zone at the time after closing the previous season as runner-up.

In his seven league matches, Newton only managed to win one match, losing four.

Just 24 hours later, another club sounded the alarm. This time it was Kayserispor, which announced the departure of Bayram Bektaş, who also lasted seven matches, winning two games but losing the others.

Another 24 hours and another coach was jobless. This time Kasımpaşa showed the door to coach Mehmet Altıparmak, who coincidentally also lasted seven matches before the club cut ties. His exit was as mystifying as Tuna's since Kasımpaşa was sixth at the time, having just won the game against Trabzonspor that sealed Newton’s fate.

The last

As the year came to a close, Erzurumspor, hoping the third time would be the charm, parted ways with not one but two coaches. After dismissing former Beşiktaş player-turned-coach Mehmet Özdilek on Nov. 30, Erzurumspor appointed Hüseyin Çimşir as head coach. But Çimşir found himself at a club where patience was a rare commodity, leaving as quickly as he arrived after just five matches.

In a move most other clubs haven’t pulled in a long, long time, the Süper Lig newcomer President Hüseyin Üneş took responsibility and stepped down rather than pinning the poor results on coaches and players.

"When things started to go really bad and after I failed to secure the financial support I had hoped for, I thought a change of management would be healthy for the club," Üneş said as he announced his resignation earlier this month.

While it remains to be seen whether Üneş’s commendable move will help Erzurumspor move out of the relegation zone, other executives will continue to keep shuffling coaches around, expecting miracles from them while ignoring the real problems plaguing Turkish football as a whole.

With the twisted tradition maintaining its hold over the competition, no coach will truly feel safe at their post, no matter what their achievements are.

Çimşir will only briefly hold the title of the latest coach to depart this season.