05.05.2026 22:48
Diyarbakır Kayapınar Akşemsettin Secondary School Girls' Football Team qualified for the Turkey finals to be held in Trabzon by advancing to the last 8 with undefeated championships.
Kayapınar Akşemsettin Secondary School Girls' Football Team, achieving a significant success in Diyarbakır, qualified for the Turkey finals with their outstanding performance in both provincial and regional matches.
THEY QUALIFIED FOR THE TURKEY FINALS The team, which became the undefeated champion by scoring a total of 35 goals in the provincial competitions, secured the Diyarbakır championship. Then, winning all their matches in the quarter-final competitions held in Siirt, the team continued confidently. The Diyarbakır representative, who also did not face any defeat in the semi-final matches held in Erzurum, made it to the top 8 teams across Turkey. The young athletes, who earned the right to participate in the Turkey finals to be held in Trabzon, aim to bring the Turkish championship to Diyarbakır.
'I POSITIVELY DISCRIMINATE TOWARDS GIRLS' Coach Sadık Kaplan stated that he has been working at Akşemsettin Secondary School for 9 years. Kaplan said, 'Except for the pandemic period, I have been coaching both girls' and boys' football teams since the day I first arrived. Generally, we participate in three categories every year: star girls, junior boys, and star boys. I show a bit more positive discrimination towards girls. Because 50% of our boys' success belongs to club coaches, and 50% is our success. But with the girls, I taught football from scratch, like teaching literacy. Except for the pandemic period, we always participated in tournaments. The cups you see here are mostly the success of the girls and the boys. We have always valued the girls. In the past, we had a very nice artificial turf field at our school. Later, as the number of students increased and the building capacity became insufficient, a second building was constructed. Our artificial turf field turned into a construction site during that time. Currently, we have a large concrete field area at our school. We continue our struggle there. Since our surroundings are generally luxury complexes, we sometimes go to our students' complexes for training. We have even been complained about by the residents of the complexes and kicked out. I have had a dream for 9 years to go to the Turkey final with these girls. I have realized this dream. I have been striving for this for years. In these activities, I never made an issue of exercise hours or extra lessons. I tried to train with them every day of the week. Because we had a dream together. Even our graduated students are happy about our dream. Even if we cannot become champions there, we are very happy to have realized this dream. We will do our best to become champions there as well,' he said.
'WE BEAT ALL THE TEAMS' Team captain İnci Genç stated that she has been playing football for 5 years. Genç said, 'We scored a total of 35 goals. We beat all the teams that participated in the tournament in Diyarbakır. We went to Siirt, played 2 matches there, and won them too. Then we went to Erzurum, played 4 matches there, and won them as well. Now we are going to Trabzon. Hopefully, we will win our matches there and become champions. Our goal is the Turkish championship. We want to bring the Turkish championship to Diyarbakır and our school. My goal is to become a national footballer,' she expressed.
'WE REACHED THE FINALS WITHOUT CONCEDING A GOAL' Another team player, Ela Nur Sevgi, stated that she has been on the football team for about 3-4 years and said, 'Our coach Sadık has contributed a lot to us. We reached the Turkey finals without conceding a goal in Diyarbakır. Hopefully, we will become champions there as well. We want to bring the cup to Diyarbakır. We are excited because we will play against very strong opponents. Hopefully, we will become champions,' she spoke.