Turkish top-tier side prepare for improbable return after February’s devastating quake left winger Christian Atsu, their sporting director and five other staff dead
“I’m still sensitive to sound,” says Ekrem Eksioglu, taking a second to regain his concentration as cutlery clatters in the background. He is not alone in that. Sometimes it only takes heavy footsteps along the wooden floorboards outside their rooms for Hatayspor’s players and staff to sit bolt upright in the night. “Did you feel that too?” somebody will ask their colleague at breakfast. The answer can usually be found in their eyes.
Eksioglu cannot blank out the noise of lives collapsing around him. He was in his seventh-floor apartment, shared with his fellow assistant coach Gokhan Kagitcioglu, when an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit Antakya at 4.17am on 6 February. The tower block buckled, its walls converged.
