So the game was finally played in Konya today and Galatasaray duly won 1-0 with a goal by Umit Karan and an all round competent performance. Disappointing not to score a couple more goals and I hope the strikers get their eyesight sorted for Thursday against Leverkuesen.
Thats right we have to travel to Germany and take on Leverkeusen with only 2 whole days rest in between matches. Congratulations to the TFF for making sure that the teams representing Turkey in the European games get the best preparation. At least we know who the new President supports. Note that FB played Friday night and play the Chimps League game on Tuesday.
Still a wins a win and it takes us back to the top of the Lig by one point and a better goal average even though we did not spend loads of money on Brazilians. One good thing this season has been the fact that the goals have been shared around, if Hakan (8) does not score Nonda (10) or Umit (9) does and with Arda, Baris and Serkan Calik contributing it has been a healthy haul of goals. In fact CimBom have only failed to score in three Lig Games this season The other thing noticeable is the fact that the team looks much fitter than the last couple of seasons so despite the harshness of Herr Feldkampf's methods it seems to be working. Add to that a single red card to surprise surprise Hasan Sas and its been quite a good season so far. Lets hope they can keep it up.
2 comments:
Congrats to FB today, and good luck to GS tomorrow!
It is difficult to write this, since today was labeled as one of the darkest days in our history...a 5-1 loss to Bayer in the UEFA Cup, a competition many thought we had a chance of competing for and the trophy we triumphantly carried back to istanbul back in 2000, becoming the only Turkish team to actually win this country some pride abroad and win something against our European neighbors. Like in the glory days of GS football, we fielded a team of mostly Turkish players, in fact, this time we went with 11 of the starting 11. Many of them were under the age of 25, making it seem as though we were playing our youth squad, and this decision on behalf of Herr Feldkamp proved to be the end of us in Europe for another year. I do not wholly fault anyone in this abomination of football, whether you find blame with our brave players or with our dear coach, that is your business, I refuse to label someone the scapegoat, and will instead stand by this team until the end of time. Feldkamp has been heavily criticized for what he called "experimenting" or "tinkering" with tactics and the lineup for several of our matches, and the exclusion of Lincoln, Song, Nonda, and Barusso, not to mention the injuries to Linderoth and Ugur (both starters for many of the early matches) What some call stupidity, others will know as bravery. True bravery rarely finds the majority of people supporting it, since most people do not recognize what true bravery looks like. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, after all, he has been coaching for much longer than most of us. Lincoln has just returned from injury, give him time to recover. Song is probably exhausted from carrying his team to the final of the African Nations Cup just a few weeks ago. Barusso has not even played with the team until tonight (and congratulations to him for being the only one of our lions to score tonight). Feldkamp, instead of "embarrassing" us, has instead given us some hope. We fielded a team of all Turkish players, most of them young players, and they did (at least in the first leg in istanbul) play their hearts out for this club. They have already shown an impressive level of loyalty to GS. Judging by the group stage results, were we really expecting them to be ready to take GS back to the UEFA Cup final? If you were, have patience with them. Don't point fingers, don't judge them, don't call them names. I have no doubt that Hakan Sukur's tears after this match speak for the feelings of the rest of our players. They know they have messed up and missed a golden opportunity, but I believe this weekend's match and inshallah next week's cup match with Fenerbahce will see a Cimbom full of heart and desire. Hakan has proved again that he has always played his heart out for this club. He remains our greatest hero in history. This dark day may never dampen the shining career he has already achieved. Do not turn your backs on this team. Other matches will come. We will become champion this season inshallah and we will again compete for the Champions League next year. Let's hope our young heroes take this as a lesson and learn to never ever underestimate any opponent. If we learn this lesson, and stick together behind and with this team, we will come away from this stronger and more prepared for the next challenges. For you Fener supporters, enjoy it while it lasts. When your brazilians retire and you are left with no money and no youth structure to build the next championship team, you will realize the error of your ways. Money can buy wins, but it will never buy greatness. Greatness comes with successes and failures, and sometimes we have to experience the darkest of days before we can again witness our proudest memories. Cimbom until death...
--yusha--
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