Beşiktaş
Also written as Besiktas.
The club
Beşiktaş Jimnastik Kulübü, abbreviated BJK, was founded on 3 March 1903 in Istanbul, originally as Bereket Jimnastik Kulübü. It was the first registered sports club in Turkey and is one of the few permitted to carry the Turkish flag on its crest. The football team is one of the Big Three in Turkey, alongside Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe, and has never been relegated. The nicknames are Kara Kartallar, the Black Eagles, and Siyah Beyazlılar, the Black and Whites; the club plays in black and white. The home ground is Beşiktaş Stadium, by Dolmabahçe Palace, which holds 42,684 and is listed in the 2026-27 Süper Lig as the Tüpraş Stadium under a naming-rights arrangement. The president is Serdal Adalı.
Recent seasons
Beşiktaş won the Süper Lig and Turkish Cup double in 2020-21 under Sergen Yalçın, taking the title on the final day with a 2-1 win at Göztepe on 15 May 2021 and beating Antalyaspor 2-0 in the cup final three days later. As champions they went into the 2021-22 Champions League group stage and lost all six matches; domestically they finished sixth, though they did win the 2021 Turkish Super Cup, played in Doha on 5 January 2022, beating Antalyaspor on penalties after a 1-1 draw. In 2022-23 they played no European football and finished third. The 2023-24 season brought a Turkish Cup, won 3-2 against Trabzonspor at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium on 23 May 2024 under caretaker Serdar Topraktepe, after Şenol Güneş had resigned in October following a 3-2 home defeat by Lugano in the Conference League and Fernando Santos had been dismissed in April.
In 2024-25, under Giovanni van Bronckhorst and then Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Beşiktaş won the Turkish Super Cup on 3 August 2024 by beating Galatasaray 5-0, the largest margin in the competition's history, but finished fourth in the league. Solskjær was dismissed on 28 August 2025 after a Conference League play-off exit to Lausanne-Sport, and Yalçın returned. Beşiktaş finished 2025-26 fourth in the Süper Lig with 17 wins, 9 draws and 8 defeats from 34 matches, 59 goals scored and 40 conceded, and went out of the Turkish Cup in the semi-finals, losing 1-0 to Konyaspor. They did not beat Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe or Trabzonspor all season. Yalçın's contract was terminated by mutual consent in May 2026.
Honours and landmarks
Beşiktaş have won 21 national league titles: 16 Süper Lig, three Turkish National Division and two Turkish Football Championship. The Süper Lig titles came in 1956-57, 1957-58, 1959-60, 1965-66, 1966-67, 1981-82, 1985-86, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92, 1994-95, 2002-03, 2008-09, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2020-21. They are the only club to have won the Süper Lig unbeaten, in 1991-92. They have 11 Turkish Cups, most recently 2023-24, and 10 Turkish Super Cups, most recently 2024. The rebuilt ground at Dolmabahçe opened on 11 April 2016 with a 3-2 league win over Bursaspor, Mario Gómez scoring the first official goal there.
Notable scorelines
The record domestic win is a 10-0 against Adana Demirspor on 15 October 1989 at Ali Sami Yen, the biggest winning margin in Süper Lig history, with four goals for Ali Gültiken and three each for Metin Tekin and Feyyaz Uçar. The club's record defeat was not established from the sources read here. In Europe the reference points are clear enough. Beşiktaş reached the European Cup quarter-finals in 1986-87 and went out to Dynamo Kyiv, beaten 2-0 in İzmir and 5-0 in Kyiv. In 2017-18 they became the first Turkish club to top a Champions League group, finishing unbeaten on 14 points in a group with Porto, Monaco and RB Leipzig, then lost 8-1 on aggregate to Bayern Munich in the last 16, 5-0 in Munich and 3-1 in Istanbul. In the 2016-17 Europa League they beat Hapoel Be'er Sheva 5-2 on aggregate and Olympiacos 5-2 on aggregate before losing to Lyon on penalties after a 2-2 aggregate in the quarter-finals. The 5-0 win over Galatasaray in the 2024 Super Cup is the club's largest derby margin in that competition.
European record
Accurate as of 6 August 2026, Beşiktaş have played 261 matches in UEFA competition: 100 won, 50 drawn, 111 lost, 352 goals scored and 395 conceded. That splits into 89 European Cup and Champions League matches (27 wins), 20 Cup Winners' Cup matches (four wins), 136 UEFA Cup and Europa League matches (60 wins) and 16 Conference League matches (nine wins). The best runs are the 1986-87 European Cup quarter-final, the 2017-18 Champions League last 16 after topping the group, and Europa League quarter-finals in 2002-03 and 2016-17. By UEFA coefficient Beşiktaş are the third highest ranked Turkish club of all time, behind Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.
The recent European record has been thinner. They went out of the 2020-21 Champions League in the second qualifying round to PAOK, losing a single-leg tie 3-1 in Thessaloniki, then out of the Europa League third qualifying round to Rio Ave on penalties. In 2023-24 the Conference League campaign included the 3-2 home defeat by Lugano that cost Güneş his job. In 2024-25 the home Europa League tie against Maccabi Tel Aviv was moved to Debrecen behind closed doors for security reasons and Beşiktaş lost it 3-1. In 2025-26 they were knocked out at the Conference League play-off stage by Lausanne-Sport.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here. The English-language reporting on Beşiktaş in July and August 2026 that could be read was transfer speculation and match previews carrying paraphrase rather than attributed direct speech.
Right now (2026/27)
Vincenzo Italiano was appointed head coach on 5 June 2026, succeeding Sergen Yalçın. The squad the club listed on 31 July 2026 shows a heavily rebuilt side: goalkeeper Alexander Nübel, defenders Emmanuel Agbadou, Felix Uduokhai, Tiago Djaló, Michael Amir Murillo and Kassoum Ouattara, midfielders Wilfred Ndidi, Salih Özcan and Václav Černý, and forwards Oh Hyeon-gyu, Milot Rashica and Semih Kılıçsoy. Orkun Kökçü is captain and Ndidi vice-captain. Leandro Trossard is in the squad, signed from Arsenal; the fee and completion date were not confirmed from the sources read here, and Turkish-Football reported on 9 August 2026 only that the deal had been done and that Beşiktaş had followed it with an approach for Gabriel Jesus. Yasin Özcan is on loan from Aston Villa.
Beşiktaş entered the 2026-27 Europa League at the second qualifying round and beat Midtjylland 3-0 on aggregate. Kökçü scored the only goal of the first leg in Istanbul on 23 July 2026, and in Herning on 30 July Rashica and Kökçü, from the penalty spot, won the return 2-0.
The tie they are in now is the Europa League third qualifying round, main path, against Hradec Králové of the Czech Republic. Beşiktaş won the first leg 1-0 away at the Malšovická aréna on 6 August 2026, Semih Kılıçsoy scoring in the 80th minute. The second leg is at the Beşiktaş Stadium on 13 August 2026. The winners meet Kauno Žalgiris of Lithuania in the play-off round on 20 and 27 August.
The Süper Lig does not begin until 14 August 2026, so Beşiktaş have played no domestic league football this season.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%9Fikta%C5%9F_J.K. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%C5%9Fikta%C5%9F_J.K._in_European_football https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Be%C5%9Fikta%C5%9F_J.K._season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_S%C3%BCper_Lig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_S%C3%BCper_Lig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Europa_League_qualifying https://turkish-football.com/besiktas-launch-pursuit-of-arsenal-striker-gabriel-jesus-following-leandro-trossard-deal/ https://turkish-football.com/midtjylland-vs-besiktas-kick-off-time-team-news-and-predicted-lineups-for-uefa-europa-league-clash/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.