Holiday Cheer

I love Christmas!!

Well not the commercial travesty that passes for Christmas in the US and most of Europe but for the over the top schedule that gives 4 English Premier League matches in 10 days. Especially when here in the US thanks to Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Broadband the Husband and I were able to watch 6 matches in all.

These were :

Stoke v Man Utd
Chavski v Baggies
Liverpool v Bolton
Man City v Hull
Arsenal v Aston Villa
West Ham v Portsmouth

So that was Boxing Day sorted with a similar assortment planned for tomorrow Sunday. Perfect.

No boring Turkish SuperLig to get me frustrated and annoyed just pure theater from what is probably the best League in the World.

Eagles stuffed and trussed

The second Istanbul of the Derby was a feisty affair with the Lions of Galatasaray devouring the Besiktas Black Eagles.

6 goals and a red card tell the story of the game that Galatasary won 4-2 with a hattrick from Milan Baros and a rare toe poke from Servet as CimBom ran out 4-2 winners over the third Istanbul team who on current form may be in relegation trouble. Or perhaps not as 3 of the bottom five places in SuperLig are being occupied by teams from the second city.

So sitting here in New Jersey as the snow fell (again) giving 12 inches for the weekend and watching a match played in raw weather in Istanbul I felt sorry for the fans standing on the terraces but then again you can never forget the real atmosphere of being at the games. At least we now can watch the matches over the Internet but on the TV rather than the computer screen thanks to a new set top box received in the recent past. Much better even if the feed does sometimes freeze.

So back to the match which after the romps up the TEM over the last couple of weekends promised to be a real game. Well it was feisty alright with tackles flying in and bodies crashing to the turf with regularity. Once again Arda showed his immaturity and also lack of pace for a winger with his inability to beat people for pure pace and then every time he gets tackled dropping down to the turf and screaming for a foul. Thankfully Baris Ozbeck and Mehmet Topal are back and playing well in the midfield which is helping the team as they were important last season and are showing how much they have been missed whilst injured. Once Emre Gungor is back and fit we will have a much more solid look about us.

Lincoln had an excellent game and I just hope he will still be around at the restart of the Lig and the Board are not tempted to sell him. The pass for Baros second goal was superb and his all around play was excellent.

As for the sending off, well players have to learn not to make the gesture about yellow cards as the referees in Turkey are penalizing players who do this every time and its not the first time a player has ended up with a red as a result this season.

The penalties, well the first one and the second was clear. Having said that anyone who watched the FB Konya game will understand that referees are having a hard time this seasons with the outrageous decision to give FB a gaol when it was clearly a deliberate handball that should have been a card. Lets face it in the normal run of things Onder Turaci would have had a yellow and if that had been in his own penalty area a red, however when FB play Konya it seems that a handball goal is de-rigeur, remember Anelka anyone a couple of years ago. It was a disgraceful and shocking decision especially as the ref had already awarded Konya a free kick and changed his mind on the word of the assistant who could see nothing whereas the ref was directly behind the situation.

Why bother

3 more points from the Second City. I mean why do they bother with 4 teams when they would struggle to provide 2 full teams??

What can I say

And you wonder why its called the second city.

0-3 thats why.

A routine romp up the TEM, with three points returning, as they should to Istanbul.

Three excellent goals in 5 minutes when CimBom decided to actually play instead of train and that was that.

Looks like the second city could be down to 2 reps next season, Hacetepe and Ankaraspor?

Comedy Capers

Well the statistics will show a 3-1 win for CimBom and the fact that 2 players from Hacetepe were sent off. What the statistics and record books will not show was the general poor spectacle that the SuperLig is this season. Of course I am happy that Galatasaray won to narrow the gap to Trabzon to only 4 points and I am happy that Baros scored a hat-trick. What I am not so happy about is the general lack of quality on display in the matches I watch and the rather erratic, to say the least, standard of refereeing we have seen over the last few weeks in various matches.

I watched the Manchester derby on Sunday morning which was full of speed, skill, passion and non stop action played on a superb pitch. The day before I watched a poor match where the losing team was actually the better team but the match was decided by a very poor decision by the referee in the first half when Cisse was sent off after a dive from an opposition player. Plus the match was played on a truly awful pitch. Todays match also was affected by referee decisions, some good some bad. The second yellow for Tozo was deserved for asking for a card, Lincoln got one of those the other week as well which ended up with him being red carded, the first card much less deserved.

The standard of football is poor, the referees erratic, pitches sub standard, lighting bad and in general you can see the supporters are also in agreement as there are lots of empty seats in the stadiums this season.

This despite the fact that Sivas maintain their form of last season, Ankaraspor and Kayserispor continue to ask questions of the bigger teams and Trabzon are on top which should be seen as examples of healthy competition but when its obvious that you are playing 14 men in Istanbul its no surprise that people stop watching as the results are almost foregone conclusions.

I am looking forward to the winter break so I don't have to watch the matches for a while, maybe my enthusiasm will come back because right now there is not much there.

Lugano is a cheat

Well no surprise there.

I just want to throw up watching the one sided referee performance in the FB BJK match. Somehow a deliberate trip by Lugano is not a red card when Nobre is clean through however when you blow on one of the precious budgies its a second yellow hence red.

When are we gouing to see a competent performance froem a man in blue this season in Kadikoy...oh the answer is never.

Even more rubbish

Terrible, and 0-0.

Instantly forgettable

Galatasaray and IBB served up 90 minutes of dross today but at least Cim Bom won 2-0 with goals from Kewell and Lincoln.

That was about it.

Same old story

So after a good run of results with only the Eskisheir blip we went into todays Derby match with confidence high as FB had been rather inconsistent. Of course I had forgotten the most important rule in Turkish soccer which is that FB are not allowed to lose at home to Galatasaray.

This means that the referee was the most important player and once again the referee showed where his allegiance was. How can a direct free kick that goes directly into the goal be disallwed for obstruction???????? I mean what makes it more obvious is when Devid wrestles Umit to the floor from a corner nothing is given and 7 yellow cards to three including one for Arda who was yellow carded because he wanted to take a quick corner which he is entiltled to do but the assistant referee stopped him to make sure FB could organize themselves.

Blatant bias like this is killing games and this total favouritsm at Kadikoy makes you wonder just how much is being spent on referees this season.

Can anyone tell me how Selcuk avoided being sent off as he made probably 6 tackles each worthy of a yellow card, of course when Lincoln complained he got the yellow rather than Selcuk for the late high tackle. 5 minutes later he finally got the yellow for underseeing Lincoln as that was simply too blatant for the referee to miss.

I guess the knives will be out for Skibbe but really GS played as well as they could despiet the refereeing and continous fouling from FB which went unpunished by the referee.

Its matches like this that make me wonder why I follow the SuperLig with the appaling quality of the referring etc. I watched the ManUtd Arsenal game yesterday and there was a single dodgy decision that affected the outomce of the game unlike today where the referee assured FB of the victory.

Little bit better

First of all today was about getting three points following Besiktas loss and TS winning. That was achieved. Does style matter, well yes but as I think it was Bill Shankly said if you want entertainment go to the circus. So today was a win and three points although the entertainment was rather low.

The team was reinforced with Lincoln back in midfield and we had more of a goal threat throughout the game because he was back in the team. Still the central defence pairing of Servet and Emre Asik makes me nervous and the central defensive midfield went missing too often for my liking. Ayhan was quite anonymous this week whihc was good but sometimes it let Antep get way too far forward.

The goals were well taken with Arda's a masterpiece of long ball football, Bolton would have been proud of that one.

Should ease some of the pressure on Skibbe although the idiots who are never satsified with anything except for getting Terim back etc. will now be complaining about how the team played rather than the result. I like watching exciting football which is why I watch the English Premier League, probably the most excotomg football there is when the top teams play, not quite as exciting when the others play but interesting nonetheless. Before the GS match I watched the Bolton Man City game and there was one major difference in the way the game was played. Was it exciting, not really, but the players worked so hard, with Kevin Davies acting as the lone striker and defending from the front closing down the opposition defenders and when he lost the ball chasing back. Arda on the other hand could be seen wandering back to his own half or just standing watching when he lost the ball. That attitude has to change and I for one do not think this team is as fit as last year under Feldkampf. But really the GS game was so slow after theBolton Man City match!

The worst part of the game was the injury to Kewell which may hurt the team with the UEFA cup match and the Derby coming up.

Anyway, three points in the bag and three points behind TS at the top so all in all its not too bad.


On a side note Eskisehir proved that the win over GS was not a one off as they held FB at home to a 2-2 draw and should probably have won the match if the linesman had real eyes instead of his yellow and blue glasses on.

Dear oh dear

Not sure where to start today after that travesty of a football match.

When you play a team that is so limited that their basic means of stopping you is to kick the crap out of your skilful players and hope that the referee is generous enough to not issue yellow cards then its really hard to accept losing to such a team.

Its even harder to accept a result like this when two of the opposition teams goals were offside, one marginally and one so clearly it was unbelievable that it was not given. The third Eskisehir goal was so clearly offside as to be not funny but then with Firat Aydinus totally inept performace as a referee today I think anything went unless it was in favor of CimBom.

Having said that Galatasaray did not play particularly well today or at least some individuals and there were too many mistakes. Emre Asik had a horrible match and was directly repsonsible for goals 1 and 4, Meira seemed to find it difficult to control the ball, Kewell drifted out of the game early and de Sanctis had perhaps his worst game since joining, Arda spent most of his time on the ground thanks to the referee's generosity.

The sooner that Emre Gungor recovers from injury the better so he can replace Emre Asik in defence as the combination of Servet and Emre A is too slow and clumsy.

I am sure that the knives will be out for Skibbe after this but really what could he do, there is no answer to incompetent referees and with the injury list he has there were no real alternatives to bring in compunded with Lincoln also missing as a result of overfussy referees.

Easy really

So much for the table toppers. I cant believe that Trabzon have been sweeping all before them so far in the SuperLig as they were far from impressive today despite a more than helpful referee.

Galatasaray 3-0 Trabzonspor

After a quiet opening CimBom gradually started to dictate the play with Ayhan finally managing to control the ball and not give it away. The first goal by Arda came somewhat against the run of play but was a superb goal from the sideline, not sure whether it was a cross or not but who cares it went in. The second had a touch of fortune about it as Arda miskicked after a scramble in the penalty area and the ball went in off Servet's hand. However the Trabzon players hardly complained and as his arm was at his side it was not ruled handball.

So to the second half where Galatasaray toyed with Trabzon. After 60 minutes Kewell and Baros combined to open the Trabzon defence like a can opener and in slipped Lincoln to score a relatively easy goal, 2 minutes later he was off but it really did not disrupt the flow of the match.

The referee decided to even things up by booking Lincoln for a handball in the second half just after he had scored which was his second so he had to take the long walk. Rather a harsh yellow when you consider what else was going on in the game.

A few minutes later and Tolga rugby tackles Sabri in the penalty area, clear penalty but somehow the referee and linesman decided the ball was already out of play, replays clearly showing it was not but should have been a penalty and a red card. Add in a totally incorrect offside decision against Aydin Yilmaz and well really, this would have been a massacre.

So the pretenders disposed of relatively easily which should ease some of the pressure on Skibbe and help shut up the idiots who want to see Terim back as coach. After the first 20 minutes Galatsary dominated the match playing a high and fast pressing game with quick interpassing and a relatively sound defence.

Lets hope this kick starts a good run, Eskisehirspor away next weekend so that should pose not too big a problem, but given they beat Bursapsor this weekend it may be harder than we thought especially as we have the small matter of playing Olympiakos in the UEFA Cup on 23rd October, still at least we are at home so no travel involved.

Crunch Time

Well its been an interesting couple of weeks. We had the undignified sight of the Turkish National Team struggling to beat Bosnia and then drawing to that powerhouse of football, Estonia. There are probably more people live in Kasimpasa than Estonia and we cannot produce a team that can beat them? So that was 2 points dropped. It seems we have a good first eleven but strength in depth, forget it. I guess teams like Brazilbahce don't help and it feels like almost every Turkish club has a couple of south Americans or balkan players and still the clubs want to be allowed more foreigners. Way to go.

Turkey get elected to the UN security council, achieving some kind of recognition on the International stage even as the Istanbul Stock Exchange continues its merry slide.

In CimBom land the management of the club decide that after 2 draws 3 wins and a loss that this is not good enough and decide to get rid of the assistant coaches leaving Skibbe all alone. In other rumours it is thought that the Imperator may return. Well I sincelrely hope not.

Yes Fatih Terim was good when we won the UEFA Cup in 2000 but his more recent spell in charge 2002-2004 after Lucescu was unceremoniously dumped was not exactly a success 2nd and 6th for those who cannot remember and it took Gerets and then Feldkamp to get the squad and team sorted out. So you could say I am not in the bring back Terim camp.

Other strange goings n the SuperLig yesterday included a relegation threatened canaries escaping from Kocaeli with a win thanks to the referee not awarding a single free kick to Kocaeli in the second half despite clear fouls, see the run up to the second goal and then playing additional time until they scored. Having beaten CimBom last time out second placed Bursa then promptly lost at home to Eskisehir!!!

And today we have Trabzon at home, a match that ins the last few seasons would have been a relatively comfortable three points. If the team plays we should win but lets see.

UEFA Cup

So the draw was made for the UEFA Cup today:

Galatasaray
Hertha Berlin
Olympiacos
Metalist Kharkiv
Benfica.

Could be worse, but could not be much better. Personally I think the UEFA Cup is going to be hard for anyone to win this season with the likes of Villa, Ajax, AC Milan lying in wait.

Injuries out of control

At the moment it seems like a lot of teams are suffering from lots of injuries. For example Galatasary had officially 13 players injured before the Bursaspor match on Sunday. These were:

1. Emre Gungor
2. Ugur Ucar
3. Tobias Linderoth
4. Aydin Yilmaz
5. Baris Ozbek
6. Hasan Sas
7. Mehmet Topal
8. Harry Kewell
9. Sabri Sarioglu
10. Arda Turan
11. Serkan Calik
12. Umit Karan
13. Orkun Usak

Now of those Emre Gungor and Serkan Calik are long term injuries, Ugur has been out for a while, Linderoth seems to be permanently injured and Orkun Usak is a goalkeeper so is he really missed as Aykut and De Sanctis are not injured.

Funnily enough Arda and Sabri played on Sunday but neither of them looked as sharp as normal.

If you look at other teams around Europe you will see similar stories at some clubs and no injuries at others. Are these level of injuries only to be found at clubs with a lot of international players who thanks to Blatters insatiable greed and complete disregard for player fitness has the FIFA and UEFA treadmill at full throttle these days. Are the injuries a result of poor conditioning, poor nutrition, just bad luck or is it beacuse of the demands of the modern game, its speed and physicality.

Are Turkish teams less professional than other teams, I mean even at Euro 2008 they seemed incapable of rehabilitating players quickly unlike other countries.

For example Bolton Wanderes, not excatly a rich club, have conditioning coach, a nutrisionist, force players to undergo ice baths after matches to speed recovery and are able to recover players very quickly it seems. Do Galatasaray I wonder have similar facilities or even care about them?

There are bad days and then !!!!!

After ensuring their place in the group stages of the UEFA Cup, in fact as Turkeys only repsresentative with a chance of winning anything in Europe this season, Galatasaray came back down to earth with a bump with an away match to the third place team of Bursaspor.

Well to say it was a bad day at the office would be a kind. It was poor, the team looked half a metre slower than Bursa all over the pitch and the defensive midfled of eeerm and urmm was totally non-existent. I think the midfled was supposed to be Ayhan, Hakan Balta and Lincoln but as they were nowhere to be seen half the match and especially when both goals were scored that it was hard to tell. The defence was poor but with the zero protection they recieved its no wonder. Baros seemed isolated up front and there was no real support for him. As I said poor all around.

I have to say that I am glad its an International weekend coming up. Gives the team a chance to regroup and maybe get some of the injured players back up and running.

Of course whilst I feel bad we lost at least it was away against a team higher in the LIg than us....so I was immensley cheered by what happened in Kadikoy later, 1-4 against Kayserispor at home, half empty stadium to start with and an almost empty one at the end. No real supporters there, no team spirit and probably soon no manager, decade of dominance you really have to laugh.

Another 4 goals

So for the third match Galatasaray scored 4 goals. Interestingly in the three SuperLig matches CimBom have won they have all been by 4-1, the others were draws. This now puts us in third spot on 11 points with a goal difference of +9, one point behind Bursaspor who we play away next week so that should be a tasty match.

A good solid all round performance showing the benefits of sensible recruiting instead of blindly wasting money on over priced Latins and Spaniards. Baros and Kewell continue to have a sort of Indian Summer as they score goals almost for fun. Baros first goal, a 30yard screamer was as good a goal as you will see this season. Perhaps the only bad part of todays performance was the defending for Konyas goal, which was non-existent as the team stood and watched.

The scoreline could have been more than 4 with Lincoln, Kewell, Baros and Hasan all having good opportunities later on to add. The domination was such that Servet and Meira were playing as extra forwards towards the end leaving the defence in the safe and responsible hands of Hasan!!!!! Not exacty sure about his credentials as a right back but at least he has not made any huge mistakes since his inclusion in that position.

Nice to see some of the younger players also getting a run out as Erdem and Yaser Yildiz got a few minutes late on and also had a chance to score.

Lets hope that this good form continues into the Uefa Cup second leg this week where we are at home to Bellinzona with a 4-3 advantage from the first leg.

Chance to move up

So tomorrow we have Konyaspor, the bread eaters at home.

Quite a few injured players including Linderoth and Umit Karan as well as Sabri so I guess Hasan will continue at right back.

We really need to get a win tomorrow given that Trabzon are going like an express train at the top and FB have only won 2 games. I guess Aziz may need to adjust his ten year domination plan....

The Husband is happier today after Man Utd managed a win, albeit with some assistance from Rob Styles. Mind you after the Chavski game where Mike Riley seemed to be on a one man mission to book everyone in red it was nice to get a present from the ref today.

Wonder how long before the canaryites turn on Aziz, wont be long now I am sure.

Not too bad

In weather more appropriate for ducks, CimBom finally clicked as a team with an emphatic 4-1 win at Kocaelispor.

However I must admit that for the first 20 minutes and especially after Kocaeli took the lead we did not look like a side that is the defending champions, especially with Hasan Sas playing at right back. I assume that Sabri was injured and that there was no-one else but that seems a bit desparate to me.

I must admit that the goal that got us back into the match on another day could have been a free kick to the goalkeeper even tough in reality there was virtually no contact with Serdar by Nonda. Anyway from the resultant open play Baros made it look easy.

After that GS played much better and finally began to find each other on the pitch opening up kocaelspor relatively easily, with good goals from Baros, Nonda and Kewell to round things out.

Seems like the last couple of games the players are working out a system that works for them even if the so-called Derwall system it is not. Not sure how much Skibbe is having to do with it all or whether the payers have simply decided to play a certain way but they have scored 8 goals in the last 2 games, although the 4 they conceeded is a worry.

So its second position in the League, 2 points behind Trabzon althoug if Besiktas win later today they will retake second spot.

Swiss Cheese

So we almost slipped on the banana skin that is Bellinzona.

a 4-3 win away though gives us a good away goal advantage but really this should have been easier although I must admit I have no idea how the players were as I could not get a streaming internet connection for the game as ShowTV died just before the game started as usual.

Nice to Kewell and Baros amongst the goals, Kewell has scored a couple already but I think these were the first Baros has scored since his arrival.

However the most important goal was from Lincoln in the 95th minute. Having been 3-2 ahead after they had a man sent off we really should have killed them off but still an away won even so late is still an away win whihc is always good in European competion.

Elsewhere Besiktas won 1-0 at home and Kayeserispor lost 2-1 to PSG at home.

So roll on Sunday and an awauy game at rock bottom Kocaelispor, that had better be three points unless Skibbe really does want to leave.