After winning the TAFL – Turkish American Football League – title in 2010, the Istanbul Cavaliers went through many changes.
“It is a restructuring year for us” says Bahadır Ilgaç, team president. “But this does not mean a lower level team is coming; it is restructuring to move the team to the next level. We were a group of guys who were loving the game and liked to play together. Now we are reforming the team to compete at the European level.”
The change within the Cavaliers began right after the championship game in June 2010, when the team changed coaches, releasing their old coach Hayden Flower from his contract. Soon they hired last year’s coach of the Vukovi, John Harper, which was seen by most as a move that will steer the Cavaliers in the right direction. But it didn’t work out, as Harper parted ways with the team before the season started and so they will begin 2011 without a head coach, with more experienced players in coaching roles.
“We don’t act fast. We will hire the new Head Coach may be next season. We will wait until we find the guy who we can trust and give the Program to his hands for the long term.”
Like most teams, they also went through player changes, albeit in their case dramatic. While they lost some, like former quarterback Burak Şenyuva, who switched to another Turkish team and 18 other players, most of whom decided to limit themselves to university level football only, they’ve made significant improvements.
Their best known newcomer is a Serbian national team player Igor Vukoje. While he is an unusual choice for an import player, since he is not American, he did prove his worth in a short time with the Vukovi in 2008, while his original Serbian team was in the offseason.
The Cavaliers also welcomed players from various Turkish Clubs and others from abroad. Desmond Mays (RB) from the United States will be another import to play with the team this year. In addition to them, Kasey Crosby (LB) defensive coordinator of the last season and Travis Mitchell (LB) are added to the Roster. National team players Ermir Djoka (DB), Reşat Altınay (LB) and Ahmet Kıtırcı (QB) are the newcomers to the Club.
“Beside all these guys our best assets are still our key veterans who gave their years to the Club. We have 12 National Team Players in the Roster”, underlines Ilgaç.
Cavaliers also say that they have an agreement with a quarterback that will join the team in May. Coach Daryl Johnson is hired for the B team Head Coaching position and 13 are successfully promoted to the A team and more are upcoming.
“Last week we won 40-0 against our Istanbul rival ITU Tigers. Good thing is we have games every weekend and each weekend we play better. We plan to be in our top performance by mid-May. “
“Our goals for 2011 are: we want to repeat the TAFL title and remain as Turkish champions. The competition in TAFL is really intense but we will make it again. However, the priority is the CEFL” says Ilgaç. “We are very excited, how we will perform in our first CEFL season is really crucial to us. All our plans are for that. I really can’t guess and do not want to speculate at this stage but we want to go as far as we can.“