Rıza Çalımbay

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Rıza Çalımbay, was a Turkish international . His was born on 2 February 1963 in Sivas.

He started playing football in Beşiktaş academy. Because of his determination and hard work he was nicknamed "Atom Karinca" (Atom-Ant in Turkish).

He played 494 league games for Beşiktaş and scored 41 goals. He is the most capped player for Beşiktaş. He was also the captain of the team. He also played in the UNICEF-world team against Germany and caught the eye of many clubs like Olympique Marseille but Çalımbay would not leave Beşiktaş.

He was capped 37 times for Turkey. Çalımbay retired from football in 1996.

After retiring from football, Çalımbay took manager courses in England. In 2001, he became the assistant manager for Christoph Daum at Beşiktaş but after a short time he resigned, and became the manager of Göztepespor, Denizlispor and Çaykur Rizespor. He was especially successful at Denizlispor, leading the team to latter stages in the UEFA Cup eliminating teams like Sparta Prague and the mighty Olympique Lyon side of Paul Le Guen. The FC Porto side of José Mourinho ended the UEFA Cup dreams of Denizlispor and Çalımbay after a 8-3 win on aggregate.

In 2004/2005 season, he became the manager of Beşiktaş after Vicente Del Bosque resigned. That season Beşiktaş was having really bad results and the squad was in a bad mood. But after Çalımbay took control the team started to perform really well. Riza changed the system back to a 3-5-2 formation the usual formation and began playing good football he also picked a 4-3 win over rivals Fenerbahçe SK in the Fenerbahçe Stadium. However in the season 2005/2006, Beşiktaş was performing bad once again, Despite UEFA Cup wins against FC Vaduz and Malmö FF a 1-2 home defeat by Fenerbahçe SK took the coach into troubled waters. Çalımbay resigned in the 9th week after a 0-0 draw against Kayserispor. Jean Tigana became the manager of Beşiktaş after him.