Bülent Uygun

Bülent Uygun — Biography

Bülent Uygun is known as a goalscoring captain of Fenerbahçe as a player, and as the manager who pushed Sivasspor into a title race. He celebrated goals with a soldier's salute, which earned him the nickname "The Soldier"; as a coach he used a computer-based system he called "TürBülent", which scheduled training load around planned rest periods. In 2024 he took charge of Sivasspor again.

Coming through the Sakaryaspor youth ranks, Uygun won the Second League title with Kocaelispor in 1991-92. He moved to Fenerbahçe in 1993; in his first season he was the Süper Lig's top scorer with 22 goals, and over three years he scored 39 goals in 107 matches and won the 1995-96 Süper Lig title. He began as a striker and later played as an attacking midfielder. He then returned to Kocaelispor and also played for Trabzonspor, Göztepe and Sivasspor, scoring 85 Süper Lig goals in all. He was capped 11 times by Turkey.

He began coaching at Sivasspor in 2006-07, taking the team to 7th place in his first year, leading the table at the halfway point of 2007-08, and finishing second in 2008-09, which put the club into the Champions League qualifiers. He was named manager of the year by Milliyet in 2007 and by Futbol Plus in 2009. He then coached Bucaspor, Eskişehirspor and Elazığspor, taking Elazığspor up from the First League to the Süper Lig. In December 2013 he joined Umm Salal, becoming the first Turkish coach in the Qatar league.