Tea for two

This season is rapidly becoming one to forget. However Galatasaray still need to win todays match to cement third place and so a UEFA Cup position. With Besiktas and the others winning on Saturday and Friday the Championship is gone so third place is all we have to play for although if Besiktas make a mistake we could still sneak into second and the Chimps League.

Here in New Jersey it was a nice warm afternoon for watching football and after having watching Newcastle frustrate Chelski, to the Husband's relief it was time for a nice cup of tea. First of all Mondragon was not playing but Aykut is a reasonable replacement as he showed after about 15mins with a great save from Biryol. Does anyone else think that Altan and Umit look like brothers, although Altan has less hair!!!

There was also an Alien siting, thats right Fatih "Imperator" Terim was in the crowd, cannot be to check out players for the National Team, or was it nostalji.

Both teams set out like express trains and the crowd was in fine form. Lots of chances and poor defending and after 20 minutes it could have 1-1 but it was still 0-0.

And then somewhat against the run of play some poor defending at a corner allowed Rizespor to go ahead 1-0. After the 5 chances CimBom had created in the preceding 10 minutes that was hard to take.

Then in the 42nd minute after some excellent approach play Necati scored a very good goal to level things at 1-1, great pass by Inamoto to set up Necati who then got a yellow card for his celebration. More good pressure in the last 3 minutes of the first half almost brought a second goal but half time ended 1-1. Now for some tea......

Just sitting down with a cup of tea when Umit calmly slotted home from 4 yards after a mistake by the tea boy's defence and some quick think by Ayhan. And Inamoto should have scored almost straight away from the restart.

3-1 finally arrived in the 54th minute with a superb goal by Necati although the credit should go to Umit who controlled the ball superbly to then set up the cross for Necati.

On came Hakan for his comedy turn, and at the same time the game began to die a little bit, even with Sabri trying to win a non-existent penalty, and Cire flashing a shot just wide of the post, shot being cleared off the line.

So a 3-1 result, which helps for third place. Bit more exciting than the second city derby....