Sunday, August 19, 2007

Played 2 won 2

Thats the second match out of the way and a competent performance brought a 1-0 victory away at Bursa. Injuries and rotation forced Feldkamp to field a team without Linderoth or Lincoln and with only one foreign player, Song in the lineup and one on the bench. I have to say that is encouraging as some of the younger Turkish players performed quite well. So much for the 6+1 rule........Actually the important thing is that despite playing two different line ups both managed to win with arguably the less experienced team turning out at Bursa today. Over the season that could be important but I am fairly sure that Feldkamp knows his strongest 11 and arguably may not yet have played it....

Here is the starting 11

Orkun, Uğur Uçar, Song, Servet, Volkan Yaman, Sabri, Mehmet Güven, Ayhan, Arda, Hakan Şükür, Ümit Karan

And here are the substitutes

Aykut, Okan Buruk, Ferhat, Mehmet Topal, Ismael Bouzid, Barış Özbek, Serkan Çalık

The game was fairly tight with the best chances going to Galatasaray although Bursa could and perhaps should have equalized later in the game after Umit had opened the scoring in the 60th minute. Having said that Hakan reinforced his "Barn Door" tag and Sabri was close to joining him!!!! There was one of the clearest penalties I have never seen awarded when Umit was flattened in the penalty area, I wish Rob Styles had been the referee after his award of penalty to Chavski today for Malouda tripping over air....

Whilst not totally convinced by the team I must say I am pleasantly surprised by the performances so far and at least the tendency to give away soft goals like last season appears to have been stopped at the moment, maybe because Tomas is not playing? 6 points from 6 and no goals against is a satisfactory return and should see GS top the Lig or be there or there abouts depending on the scores from other games later today.

Actually its three wins from three if you include the UEFA cup and 1 goal against.

1 comment:

Eski Kanka Jim said...

The `acid test` will be on Sunday when ANKARAGUCU come calling on an empty stadium.

The difference between ANKARAGUCU and other teams (Bursa included) is that the players heads don't go DOWN if they go behind.

Let battle commence !!