Galatasaray win a fourth consecutive Super Lig title, and Fenerbahce's 12-year drought just got longer

Kaan Ayhan's finish in the final minutes of a 4-2 win over Antalyaspor at RAMS Park on Saturday night brought the whole stadium to its feet. Mauro Icardi had come off the bench, set it up, and the noise inside the ground was the kind you only hear when a title is being confirmed in front of your own fans.

Galatasaray are Super Lig champions for the fourth consecutive season, the 26th time in their history, equalling the four-peat that Fatih Terim produced between 1997 and 2000. Okan Buruk has built something genuinely historic in Istanbul. Fenerbahce, four points back with one game left, now go twelve years without a league title, their longest drought ever.

They sacked their coach and sporting director the morning after Galatasaray beat them 3-0 last month. The season ended the way it had been building for months: Galatasaray on top, and everything around them on fire.

The Turkish Super Cup, played at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium on January 10, brought Galatasaray and Fenerbahce together in a one-off final that became a flashpoint before a ball was kicked. Fenerbahce supporters disrupted the minute of silence held in honour of Gökmen Özdenak, a former Galatasaray player who had died on December 31. Galatasaray responded by refusing to attend the post-match ceremony. The federation fined them for unsportsmanlike conduct. Fenerbahce were also fined for their fans' behaviour. That was the temperature of things in early January. It only got hotter.

Fenerbahce president Ali Koc had spent much of the first half of the season making noise about referee bias favouring Galatasaray, specifically pointing to a December match against Samsunspor in which a Galatasaray handball in the box was reviewed by VAR for two minutes and then waved away, with Galatasaray holding on to win 3-2. The TFF's own chief criticised the decision after the match, Samsunspor's president said he would hold everyone accountable, Fenerbahce published formal complaints. Yet, Galatasaray's lead at the top stretched to three points as nothing changed and the pattern of the season was already set.

Interestingly, the April 26 derby came 48 hours after Galatasaray had suspended all relations with the Turkish Football Federation. The immediate cause was the TFF's appointment of referee Yasin Kol for the match, a man club officials felt had a track record that raised questions about consistency when Galatasaray were involved.

It was a dramatic, pointed escalation from a club that was already leading the league and had nothing obvious to gain from the confrontation except a public statement of distrust. The derby itself, which Galatasaray won 3-0 with Victor Osimhen, Baris Yilmaz and Lucas Torreira on the scoresheet, then produced its own controversy when two first-half penalty appeals for the home side were turned down despite widespread video evidence suggesting both warranted review.

As confirmed by ESPN, Galatasaray's social media team posted directly: “Don't let the score distract you from the fact that two clear penalties for Galatasaray have been ignored.” They had won by three. They were still furious. This is Turkish football!

What Okan Buruk has built is the most dominant league team in Turkish football history over a four-year stretch. Since he took charge, Galatasaray have won 145 of 203 matches, claimed four consecutive league titles, a Turkish Cup and a Super Cup, and this season reached the Champions League round of 16, where they beat Juventus 5-2 in the first leg before going through on aggregate despite losing the second leg.

Ilkay Gundogan, signed from Manchester City in the summer, gave the midfield a passing quality it had never quite had. Leroy Sane, also signed from Bayern, offered direct wide play that made Galatasaray's attack unpredictable from both sides. And then there's Victor Osimhen, the Nigerian striker who has become one of the most loved players in the city's recent memory, terrorising the opponents defences in the Turkish league and Europe.

Icardi, who broke Gheorghe Hagi's record for most league goals scored by a foreign player in Galatasaray's history in December, finished the campaign as top scorer in the Super Lig with 14 goals.

At 33 and having come off the bench for Saturday's title-clinching moment, his contribution was the kind that doesn't always make the front pages but which a squad needs to go deep into a season without dropping.

Celebrations went through the night in Istanbul. Fans packed Taksim Square. Fireworks went off across the city. Buruk, speaking to the cameras at RAMS Park, said simply that this group “defined an era.” He's right. Four titles in a row is rare in any league and rarer still in the Super Lig, where the rivalry between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce usually keeps the gap between them tight enough to produce a different winner every few years. This time, it wasn't close. And Fenerbahce, going into the summer without their coach, without their sporting director and without a league title since 2014, face a rebuild that needs to be more than cosmetic if they're going to challenge the team that has left them behind so completely this decade.