Disgraceful

Where to start after Sundays disgrace.

Lets start with the referee, not because I want to pick on him but just as a place to start. The Husband was watching the game with me and as early as the 15th minute he had picked up on the fact that the referee was being extremely tolerant of some poor tackling. For example as early as the 12th minute Semih had taken one of the GS Players out about 5 minutes after the ball had been played and although the free kick was awarded there was no yellow card. Whilst I am all for free flowing matches this was not the one to try it in because it was not until the 90th minute that Semih finally was booked for his 5th or 6th very late tackle. As the Husband said, if that was the Premier League he would have been booked for the first one, so the ref could set a standard. Instead worse and worse tackles were tolerated all evening which culminated in the events in the 93rd minute. Of course I am biased but FB should have been reduced to 10 men when Selcuk kicked Umit straight in the face, if you think this was nothing then you were obviously not watching the Everton - Villa match where a penalty was awarded for less than that. Given he had just been booked he should have walked but again the referee was very lenient. Its not that he was biased to FB its just that he lost control of the match, I mean when Sabri and Emre were strangling each other they should have both been red carded but again just yellows.

Now for the players. Neither set of players were very professional. Their actions in the last minute were ridiculous and one or two of them I am sure will be banned for considerable lengths of time, Lugano should just be thrown out of the country or sent to a psychiatric hospital he is a crazy eyed psychopath, Arda should be banned for the rest of the season and I hope the GS board decide to not pay him either and the same for Semih. I was not quite sure why Emre got the red card, after being head butted, then dropped with a right hook from Lugano and then stamped on I would have been upset so his ban should be a couple of games as he was pretty much the innocent party in all of that. These players and Arda and Semih especially are on posters pinned on kids walls and they should be deeply ashamed and embarrassed about their actions. I hope Fatih Terim is also told to drop them from the National Squad for a couple of matches, they really don't deserve anything else.

I am sure that the TFF will also punish GS for the fans behavior but they should take a long hard look at the referees performance before they point the finger elsewhere. Also when your player is clearly headbutted but no action is taken its no wonder that they get frustrated.

As for the match well Kewell apart there was no real quality on display, just spiteful tackling and a lack of creation. In the first half CimBom consistently opened up FB on their left hand side, Kewell and Sabri exposing Roberto Carlos time and time again but the last ball was always a bit hurried or off. Kewell had a couple of chances as did Baros although even he had scored it would have been offside! Second half was more even although over all I think GS were the better team. However the match clearly showed why the two teams are 4th and 5th and probably out of the championship. GS desperately need a holding midfielder and Arda needs to stop pretending to be Hasan Sas, you know run forwards, stop, run back and pass sideways. Of course he is not really fast enough to play as a winger. As for the rest of the squad, its promising I believe there is a strong backbone of young Turkish players who with the addition of a couple more defenders and a holding midfielder will be a good team.