Career
He was one of the symbol names of Beşiktaş J.K. and was among the best players of his time. Because of his determination and hard work he was nicknamed Atom Ant (in Turkish, "Atom Karınca"). He started playing football in Beşiktaş J.K. academy.
He has depicted for the first team in 1980-1981 season.
Until his retirement in 1996, he played only for Beşiktaş, and for the Turkish National Football Team, although he played in the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund-world team against Germany and caught the eye of many clubs like Olympique Marseille but Çalımbay would not leave Beşiktaş. 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 37 times for Turkey.
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 Göztepe, Denizlispor and Çaykur Rizespor. In 2004/2005 season, he became the manager of Beşiktaş after Vicente Delegate Bosque was sacked.
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. Çalımbay resigned in the 9th week after a 0–0 draw against Kayserispor.
Jean Tigana became the manager of Beşiktaş after him. He then coached Ankaraspor but resigned after a few matches.
Çalımbay signed a 1.5 year contract with again Çaykur Rizespor, although he had options to coach abroad in Iran and Germany but he chose Çaykur Rizespor.
On 6 June 2008 he signed a 3 year deal with Eskişehirspor. International goals.