Sunday, February 25, 2007

Lucky Escape

Excellent result in Antalya today with Antalya winning 1-0 which keeps the gap manageable.

Seems like all the Istanbul teams are in meltdown at the moment but is anyone else going to take advantage?

Saturday, February 24, 2007

What the f***

Husband here again.

Gulay is not happy after Friday's result in the Super Lig, a 1-1 draw with Denizlispor. I must admit I did not see the game as I was at work in Manhattan and Gulay did not see it either as she was asleep!!!

That is probably that as far as the Championship is concerned, all we can hope is that the Kadikoy mob implode as Volkan continues to stuff things up. At least we are still in second place as Besiktas managed to lose to Trabzon but this season is rapidly unravelling for CimBom. There must be a clear out at the end of the season, new defence, new midfield and new attack needed! The coach could stay as Gerets has in our opinion done a reasonable job but I doubt if the management will let him if the Championship goes to Asia. GS need to finish at least second and then hope we can do better in the Chimps League next season. Of course FB getting knocked out by AZ Alkmaar means fewer points for Turkey so fewer chances to get on the CL.


At least Man Utd got a won today against Fulham so now they are 9 points ahead of Chavski, which is good as the next away game is Liverpool! Normally I would expect 3 points from that game but the last couple of matches Utd have not payed too well and Liverpool having beaten Barcelona away are on a high, plus we have a FA Cup replay against Reading on Tuesday, no rest for the wicked!

Well thats that so bye for now!

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Supposedly cultural hooligans

Watched the Man Utd Lille match last night.

Very poor game won by a piece of quick thinking by Giggs. Unfortunately it seems that most French football players and their manager do not know the laws of football. The quickly taken free kick is something you see week in week out in the EPL, the ref asks, and moves away from the ball and its up to the team that committed the offence to keep their eyes on what is happening, if they are looking at their goalkeeper then tough luck! As for Puels comments that Giggs should have been booked or sent off then yes if the player had said he will wait for the whistle and takes it quickly, I have seen that happen but not if he says I'll have a quickie!

As for walking off the pitch to protest if thats what typically happens in France than maybe UEFA should be considering whether French Football should be in Europe at all as they appear to play to a different set of rules.

Typical French, can't stand being beaten, again and again and again by the English. What a bunch of cry babies.

As for the problems in the crowd, pictures of old ladies and kids being carried out of a prison cage, now banned in the UK of course, as a result of tear gas being used on fans who appeared to being crushed, good on you you French morons, way to manage a situation properly. It looked like Hillsborough was about to start all over again.

And then there were the missiles being thrown on to the pitch by the French "Supporters". How sad is that, this again shows the complete inability of the French to police things properly.

IN short it looks like the French Riot Police were itching for a fight, it looks like they scored an own goal though and should have targeted the home fans and the stewards who were responsible for the problems.

It will be interesting to see UEFA's response to this. I am half expecting Man Utd to be punished more severely than Lille actually and it would not surprise me if UEFA somehow convince themselves that the referee made a technical mistake and order the game relayed. Just remember what happened between Bahrain and another Asian team before last years World Cup when Bahrain claimed the referee should not have awarded a penalty and forced the game to be replayed. Why the cynicisms you ask, well Platini is the new boss of UEFA and he will of course support the French teams in the same way Splatter supports anyone who is not Turkish or English.

Lets face it UEFA have been silent so far on the trouble in Italy but whenever there is problems in Turkey or UK they are very quick to talk about bans etc. The only country to have been banned from European competition are English teams after Heysel , and Feyernoord, and yet it seems that other countries can kill, maim and cause general chaos without sanction. I expect almost nothing to be done to Lille even though they should be kicked from the competition. Lets face it of Turkey are banned from home games for 6 matches after the Swiss match then what should be Lille's sanction?

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Trail of incompetence

The Husband here again.

Just finished watching the Galatasaray Gaziantepspor match and also the Man Utd Reading match in the FA Cup. On view tonight was one known incompetent, who generally lived up to his reputation, and one total and relatively new incompetent who proved he should not be a referee in the Super Lig. I refer of course to Messrs Poll and Deda. Now we all know about Mr Poll but Cem Deda excelled himself in the GS Antep game.

In the last 10 minutes there were two clear penalties for Galatasaray, one for the clear foul on Hasan by Fukrat (or whatever the hell his name was) and one for the tosting of Oakn by........you guessed it Fukrat. There was a third on Umit but that was less clear. According to Mr Deda it is not a penalty when the defender slides through from the back takes your legs before getting the ball, and when you complain it is a yellow card. That was only one of his many poor decisions and let me be clear he was consistently incompetent with regard to decisions made against both GS and Antep. This man is so incompetent I bet his boots have velcro on them so he does not have to worry about tying his own laces!

This was a frustrating game as GS dominated but could not get close to the goal, partly because of the incompetence of Mr Deda but aslo partly because of the Antep game plan which seemed to rely on fouling any GS player with 25meters of the goal and hoping Mr Deda gave them the free kick? It worked too.

As for the Antep goal there was a non-free kick awarded by the ever consistent Mr Deda from which they scored. Not much else to say really except that even Mr Poll would have managed to get at least some of the decisions correct.

Anyway its a setback in the race for the championship and all we can hope is that Sakaryaspor can pull off a surprise result in Istanbul on Sunday, faint hope but anything is possible.



Sunday, February 11, 2007

Happy days

This has been a good weekend.

Why?

Fenerbahce lose.
Galatsaray win.
Manchester United win.

The only negative was Chelsea also won but that would, perhaps be too much to ask for.

Good game today with a performance that was about 500% better than last weeks garbage. Considering the start that Vestel Manisaspor had they have fallen off the pace rather badly and seemed a shadow of the team that existed before the winter break. Still, who cares as long as the might CimBom keep on rolling, catch and overtake the budgies from Kadikoy......again. How ironic that would be for the same meltdown to happen two years in a row. Probably it will not but one can only hope.

Umit Karan had a stormer today and finally Inamoto appeared to remember why he was picked for Japan. Ilic gave another strong performance although I have to say the defence still makes me hyperventilate occasionally. Wish we could have brought reinforcements in during the transfer window.

Actually, having seen the results from yesterday I am beginning to think that the draw last week in Kayseri was not a bad result given the pasting they gave Ankaragucu on Saturday. Nothing like a trip to the second city to get your dander up and give the AC Milan wannabes a lesson in passing, shooting and generally playing football.

Dont know if anyone else caught it but I watched the Wigan Areshole game as well and Henry gave another demonstration as to why he is NOT a class player. His gloating and frankly childish reaction to the won goal that Wigan conceded to bring L'Arse level (from an offside cross) went unpunished but I really think his attitude sucks. He may be a technically gifted player but when you do things like that you merely incite stuff and he was lucky it was not a more fiery character than Kirkland that he did it to.

I think thats about it.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Contrasting styles

Here I am in snow covered New Jersey watching Galatasaray play Kayseri on a snow covered farmers field. And I have to say I am not overly impressed with the action on offer. Especially as the Husband has just finished watching the Man Utd Tottenham match which saw 4 goals, flowing football, skill and passion.... elements generally missing from the fare on digiturkwebtv. Oh well its only the start of the second half so things could, please get better. Good to see thaht now the break is over the weather went bad...typical.

Why are they not using one of the yellow or orange balls tough, its really difficult to see on the screen, or maybe they are and its the lights are a bit dim like the majority of the play on view.....or maybe thats a blessing in disguise!!!It is a yellow ball, just saw it as Song clattered a player for what is it had been Alex a penalty.

Here is something I don't understand, the Kadikoy mob get punished and have to play in Izmir. How nice at this time of year, no snow, good pitch and you call that a punishment.......more like an advantage at this time of year......

What a crap match...can we play in Izmir too and not on frozen snow covered pitches..

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Turkeys finest strike again

I will never cease to be amazed by the absolute moron behavior of some people in Turkey. I refer of course to the leaked pictures showing various of the boys in blue posing with a Turkish Flag and the suspect in the Hrant Dink murder.



Irrespective of what you think about the picture the more disturbing part of this story is the quote from the Chief of Police that "an investigation was under way into officers seen in the footage, as well as into who leaked it to the media." This is so typical, remember the rail crashes a couple of years ago when the Transport Minister blamed the accidents on divine forces rather than offering to take responsibility, resign and fire those responsible. In this case all the cops in the pictures should be thrown off the force, and the person who leaked this should be given a medal. What will happen is the cops will stay and the leaker be punished, probably for insulting Turkishness if the various paragons of Turkishness have their way.

Clean out the stable or resign, Mr Erdogan.