How Okan Buruk Tactics Made Galatasaray Into Süper Lig’s Best Side

Since the appointment of Okan Buruk in June 2022, Galatasaray, the historical champion of Turkish football, have made constant progress which was evident recently when they defeated their rival Fenerbahçe 3-0 in the Süper Lig.

Okan Buruk who played for 11 years with the Turkish giant, winning six leagues and a single UEFA Cup, arrived after Domenec Torrent, Pep Guardiolas assistant in Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, and after Fatih Terim the historical club manager.

Okan Buruk had yet to manage one of the elite Turkish sides before his arrival but helped Istanbul Başakşehir to their first league in 2020.

This season Galatasaray are showing tactical diversity and enthusiasm to play modern football with the strategy of their new coach, and this Okan Buruk tactical analysis, in the form of a team scout report, will provide an analysis of these strategies and tactics both in possession and out of possession, to observe how he succeeded to bring Galatasaray again to the top of the Süper Lig.

Okan Buruk Formations & Stats

Okan Buruk with Cimbom in his first season has an impact on the team’s performance.

He is concentrating his principles and tactics around 4-2-3-1 for the majority of the season and occasionally transforming to 4-4-2 or 4-1-3-2 shapes as the below graphic shows.

Source: Wyscout

The 4-2-3-1 base formation variations give him the possibility to be flexible and surprising with his tactics.

Galatasaray, with Okan Buruk, keep an average possession rate of 55.69% and averaged 460.09 passes per match (84.7% accuracy), also maintaining 153.44 forward passes per game (76.9% accuracy), 55.56 passes to the final third (71.8% accuracy) and 72.84 progressive passes (76.9% accuracy).

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