Galatasaray turn up the heat

Sunday and all is well.

The weather has improved recently in Cleveland with the sun shining and a hint of civilized conditions at last after what seems like a long and miserable winter. Add to that the fact that the team that cannot be named lost on Saturday, actually they were stuffed 5-3 by Manisaspor then things are definitely improving! After spending Sunday morning cleaning, washing and attempting to persuade one of my dogs Kimi that he really should not pee in the house and tidying up in the garden it was time for the match as a 12 o'clock Eastern Time Kick off.

So to the match.

It was good to see Saidou back after a few games out. One thing with Gerets is that he tries to keep a settled team unlike some of the previous coaches who would change players for no good reason and disrupt the team. Oh yes I spotted a previous GS player in an Italian League match over the weekend, Cesar Prates is now playing for Livorno. I seem to recall he was quite a useful player but was treated poorly by the coach at that time. Why do people rave about Italian football, its so boring not even Italians want to watch the games, the stadiums are always half empty.

The game started off well with the Ali Sami Yen crowd in good voice and the cameramen for LigTV focusing in on all the good looking girls! The game started openly with Rizespor creating the first couple of chances and Mondragon making a very good save. Gradually GS started to create and the pressure paid off when Hasan put in a good cross which ended up in the net off Ilic's stomach I think although the Rizespor players thought it was a handball, replays showed otherwise. Shortly afterwards Song was carried off after damaging his knee whilst clearing the ball and Emre made an appearance. Ilic then missed a very good chance to add to the score although the keeper got a finger nail to it! After a Keystone Cops moment of defending by GS the ball was finally cleared and Necati stuffed up a very good chance.

Good start to the second half as Hakan took advantage of some dodgy defending by Rizespor and tapped in after a couple of minutes to make it 2-0 and mean I could relax a little bit and slow down on the smokes! Then Hakan got booked, not sure fir what though! Ilic managed to find the keeper and not the net, Hakan was offside thankfully,. Couple of minutes after Rizespor got a goal back when despite the ball having gone out of play they were allowed to carry on and a couple of fortunate deflections gave them a goal. Time to spark up again and eat the finger nails! On the 64th minute though the game was over when Hakan scored his second goal, and a good one it was too! Maybe there is more life in Hakan after all!!! Almost straight away Cihan decided to help out Rizespor and give all the GS supporters a nervous last 20 minutes by deflecting Emre's clearance past Mondragon. Rizespor returned the favor when a boy named Allyson scored a great goal from a Hasan Sas cross, 4-2. The pulse rate is down again! It went up a couple of minutes later though when Tomas could have given a penalty away, good job it wasn't a yellow and blue Brazilian on the recieveing end of the hand!

Probably the most odd moment though was when Hasan was fouled the ref gave nothing and when Hasan went to chase the ref Hakan rugby tackled him and told him to stop! That's the first time I saw something like that and well done to Hakan, but Hasan should grow up a bit!

So GS are now back where we belong, 3 points clear of the rest! Now I can make fun of my Husband who supports Man Utd who will almost definitely not be champions this year!!! Of course England are in the World Cup unlike Turkey so I guess we will be equal!

Time for a nice relaxing cup of tea!