Rıza Çalımbay

Rıza Çalımbay, (2 February, 1963 in Sivas, Turkey - ) was a prominent Turkish international football player, and currently coach of Turkish side Eskişehirspor. He was one of the symbol names of Beşiktaş J.K. and was among the best players of his time. Because of his determination and hard work he was nicknamed Atom Ant (in Turkish, "Atom Karınca").

Playing career

He started playing football in Beşiktaş J.K. academy. He has depicted for the first team in 1980-81 season. Until his retirement in 1996, he played only for Beşiktaş, and for the Turkish National Football Team, although he played in the UNICEF-world team against Germany and caught the eye of many clubs like Olympique Marseille but Çalımbay would not leave Beşiktaş. He played 494 league games for Beşiktaş and scored 41 goals. He is the most capped player for Beşiktaş. He was also the captain of the team. He also played He was capped 37 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 Göztepespor, Denizlispor and Çaykur Rizespor. He was especially successful at Denizlispor, leading the team to latter stages in the UEFA Cup eliminating teams like Sparta Prague and the mighty Olympique Lyon side of Paul Le Guen.The FC Porto side of José Mourinho ended the UEFA Cup dreams of Denizlispor and Çalımbay after a 8-3 win on aggregate.In 2004/2005 season, he became the manager of Beşiktaş after Vicente Del Bosque resigned. 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. Riza 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 SK in the Fenerbahçe Stadium. However in the season 2005/2006, Beşiktaş was performing bad once again, Despite UEFA Cup wins against FC Vaduz and Malmö FF a 1-2 home defeat by Fenerbahçe SK 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.

On 6 June 2008 he signed a 3 year deal with Eskişehirspor.