Snow business

With the bad news that Kewell will be out for at least 2 months to join Baros on the sidelines, Linderoth leaving the club and the horrible weather in Istanbul it was good to finally have a match to watch.

All in all this was hardly a free flowing easy to watch match but at the end of the day it was three more points gained by CimBom. There is little point making any real comments about individual performances as it was not really the weather or conditions for that today. However Neill had a solid match, with juts a couple of mis-communications during the match, Jo looked okay when he finally came on although he should have done better with his one chance. Nonda again failed to look like the replacement for Baros. After one of the clearest penalties you will ever see his penalty kick was awful and saved easily by the Antep keeper.

Anyway, as I say three points was the important thing here and that was achieved by Sarp with a good run and well taken goal from an Arda free kick.

Choices......

So here we are in the New Year, season start is tomorrow and what am I posting about.......toilets.

I recently started to keep on eye on Vassells world even though he plays in the second city. I must admit that its interesting to hear from a player rather than the endlessly optimistic Kankas...

There was a recent post about hamsi....and also toilets.

So anyway here is a picture of, what is I suppose the ultimate in toilet choice, I believe its taken in a club in Istanbul but whatever....

Stroll in the park

Looks like the CiMBom are taking the Turkish Cup more seriously this year as they recorded a 5-1 win over Denizli BD spor.

So top of the pool with a healthy goal difference and only Ankaragucu to play to finish off with, no worries.

Wizards of Oz

So whilst Genclerbirligi lose their anotpodean influence CimBom add a second Aussie that people have actually heard of. Whilst he is purely in Istanbul for the money irrespective of what he actually says Lucas Neill is a good addition to the squad and is a ball playing defender who will complement Servet or Gokhan Zan.

Progress remains smooth in the Turkish Cup and I am looking forward to the restart of the season.

Transfer Window

Its officially known as the Transfer Window but in reality its more of the silly season when Galatasaray are linked with all kinds of players who they have absolutely no chance of signing. I am not even going to bother with the list of people who have been linked to CimBom as it si about half the players in the world.

Having said that we probably need a central defender and a striker to cover for Baros and the permanently injured Zan and Gungor.....

Apparently we have or are about to sign Ali Turan from Kayseri which should help with the defense but as for a striker who knows, maybe Ruud really is going to arrive but somehow I doubt it and with the rumors about Kewell we definitley need to add someone.

Half time

So, we ended the first half of the season in second place in the SuperLig just one point behind the leaders. The top 4 in the Lig being filled by Kayseri and Bursa probably to most peoples surprise with last years Champions Besiktas down in 5th spot although only 5 points separates the top 5 teams.

The last match of the season was a hard fought win over Genclirbriligi where the team made hard work of a 1-0 victory. Having said that we did have the ball in the net on a number of occasions only for the referee to disallow all but the most obvious goal. Overall the team played well but as I mentioned in my previous post we really need someone to lead the line and cannot rely on Kewell and Arda to keep scoring especially as Mustafa Sarp appears to have forgotten where the goal is at the moment. Lets hope Baros is back in the New Year.

A 2-1 win over Trabzonspor in the Turksih Cup during the week followed and looks like we will be qualifying for the next round in that competition as well.

Catch up

Its been a while but what with the snow here in New Jersey its been a bit like hard work as the end of the Year approaches.

Back in Istanbul after a fantastic start to the season CimBom fell flat on their faces and as usual failed to capitalize in others inadequacies. If the defence could have stayed awake long enough against Manisaspor and as for the dodgy IBB result well really we should and would be top of the Lig. Mind you with the way the deck is stacked in FB's favor this season its still going to take a small miracle to win the Lig.

The Europa League was rather a stroll in the park with the hard work done in the first three matches we could take our foot off the gas and afford to lose in the Terminator's stadium in Austria. Of course that tournament now gets harder as the Chimps League failures drop down into it but still at least the group stage was negotiated without too much drama.

Overall then probably a B+ for the first half of the season and it will be interesting to see whether the club tries to bring in a striker in January as ever since Baros got injured we have struggled to break down teams. Nonda is not the answer.

So this week sees the visit of one of the high flying Ankara teams but even so it should be three points if we play to our strenths and do not get sucked in to the opposition tactic, a habit we sometimes still have despite the abundance of playmakers we have.

Daylight Robbery

Ignore the handball, ignore the foul on Keita in the build up, ignore the offside, ignore the fact that Sarp almost had his shirt ripped off, ignore the free kick count that ikn the last 10 minutes was 10-1 in favor of IBB, ignore the fact taht GS should really have been more than 1-0 ahead, but most of all Huseyn Gocek you are a wanker......

Why cant we have a referee who just for once has obviously not been bought by that fucker Aziz because only the Fucking Budgies are allowed to win anything..

Incompetent, useless, crap does not do justice to the biased, bought referee.

And I know people will say I am upset because we only drew but then you do did not watch the match, I do not know what we have to do to win, obviously Adnan needs to put his hand in his pocket and buy some refs because its obvious we are going to get nothing but shit otherwise.

Turkey day

So today is Thanksgiving that typical all American Day where religion and ethnicity does not come into play, probably the biggest and most important holiday of the year in the You Ess of Eh. Of course any mention that this a tradition that arrivied with the colonists and is almost certainly based on the old English tradition of Goose day is granted with derision but lets face it Thanksgiving started with the so called Pilgrims who were Brits, the term American was not excatly in common useage at that time.

Anyway its the one time of the year when Turkey gets all the headlines, just the wrong Turkey as far as I am concerned.

Four day weekend started today as well, excellent news except it means the Husband will be hanging around the house instead of working but that's a small price to pay.

Oh yes and GS blew the chance to go top with a woeful draw at home to the former washing machine mechanics of Manisa!

France handed place in SA

Thierry Henry cheats, well that's not news but his pathetic attempts to claim innocence, it was ball to hand hardly convince especially when you see the replay, double hand movement!

And as for sblatter and platypus....

In other news the Seyrantepe stadium is back on track, Arda has swine flu and its Manisa at home on Sunday...

Kurdled

Another weekend another three points even though the performance was not very good we will take the three points thank you.

After 11 minutes though I would have settled for a draw as CimBom played very poorly. I tell you at the moment Spurs or Arsenal could have Servet for free the way he is playing! With Sabri and then Arda scoring finally the result went our way although not until Baris got himself sent off for two relatively innocuous tackles. Not sure why Rijkaard did not take him off mid way through second half to avoid that happening, we certainly had enough midfield players on the bench with Linderoth and Elano available.

Reflecting on the TFF's punishment after the crime in Kadikoy I find it hard to understand why its only 2 matches behind closed doors, last seasons GS got 5 matches plus one that had to be played away from Istanbul! I guess throwing bottles into players faces and using lasers is not considered very dangerous. I also read a lot about ppor littel cheat Carlos and the assault on him by Keita, of course Keita should have been red carded but how else are you supposed to get a monkey off your back when its hanging on around your neck. Watch the incident again and tell me why Carlos stayed on the pitch for that rugby tackle made as last man. Oh I forgot it must have been written into the contract with the Aziz stooge in black who took 9 minutes to either count his money or wait for the wire transfer to arrive. Still at least we wont have to watch that slap head for too much longer as he announced he will leave Brazilbahce in January, good riddance I say.

So easy League

2009 Second Round - Second Round Group F
CLUB	GP	W	D	L	Pts	GD
Galatasaray	4	3	1	0	10	8
Panathinaikos	4	3	0	1	9	1
Dinamo Bucuresti	4	1	0	3	3	-6
SK Sturm Graz	4	0	1	3	1	-3

And this is supposed to be a competition? 3-0 away in Bucharest with our old player Tamas playing?

I guess the remaining matches we can roll out the reserves.

Of course it will get harder when the likes of liverpool and barcelona drop out of the chimps league and get added to the Europe League but this is embarrassingly easy.

So long as we beat the greeks, who cares.

Comfortable

Can we play Sivas every week please??? Talk about a fall from grace, last season pushing hard for top spot and this season scraping the basement of the SuperLig. I think only the fact that Ankaraspor are thrown out of the league meaning only 2 other teams go down will save Sivas this year as they are a shadow of last season. Not that I really care but it seems like every season there is a team not from Istanbul that threatens and then the season after sinks without trace. A couple of seasons ago it was Manisa who then got relegated, last year Sivas, this year Bursa...I do find it amazing that the third and fourth biggest cities in the country don't even have a SuperLig team, Izmir and Edirne but again, thats their problem not mine. Its a bit like Leeds and Newcastle not having a Premier League Team....oh that's right they don't!!!

Back to the match and well really it was very comfortable for CimBom. They should have been ahead after 5 minutes but it took until the 11th minute before Nonda, who is going to have to be more consistent in Baros absence, slotted a well taken goal. The second goal was a touch controversial but there is a 6 second rule on goal keepers. I recall Newcastle scoring from a similar situation against Bolton a few seasons ago after that paragon of fair play Shearer complained about how long Jaaskalainen was holding gthe ball. Its rare but its the law.

Anyway not that it should have mattered as GS could and should have had a hatful but Arda, who is getting more and more selfish and more and more big headed every match, wasted about 4 golden opportunities.

Next up is Dinamo Bucharest and a win or even a draw should be enough to ensure progress to the next round of the Europa League.

Cup Success

I am still pissed about what happened on Sunday so I am going to refrain from too many comments other than to the following:

1) Offside
2) Penalty.....having a laugh??
3) Just how much money was made available......9 minutes to count your money is ridiculous when it delays kick off.

And to cap it all Baros suffered the dreaded curse of the Metatarsal and is likely out until January.

So it was with relief that we could concentrate on the Turkish Cup this week and celebrate a win over Bucaspor 2-1. Of note was that Linderoth played 65 minutes. I really hope that he has finally overcome his injury problems as he will be a welcome addition back into the midfield as back up for Ayhan and Sarp.

Next up are Sivasspor at Ali Sami Yen and hopefully last yeasr surprise team will be put firmly back in their box and GS get their campaign back on track.

Better

Right so after a brief pause in my blogging activities due to lack of time here we are back with a report on the last couple of weeks activities in CimBom land.

The disappointment of Turkiye missing out on going to the World Cup and having to listen to the Husbands comments as England cruised through to South Africa, although if they think they will win they have another thing coming, was slightly offset by the fact that Terim resigned. I just hope that the GS board are not tempted to bring him back as the coach or Director of Football and upset what is going with Rikjaard. I think there are a few vacancies he can fill, Notts COunty or maybe the boss of South Africa as Santana just quite. Somewhere along way away from Istanbul would be good.

Then it was back to the cut and thrust of the SuperLig where GS made hard work of disposing of Trabzonspor at the weekend. The defence still needs some work it has to be said. Servet does not look the same player as last year, probably as a result of the injuries he received and I am not sure that Rijkaard has settled on the best defence line up yet although Hakan, Servet, Gokhan and Sabri is probably the first choice. Would be interesting to see how Caner would fit in at left back in this line up as well as Ugur Ucar on the right just as a viable alternative as I am not sure Hakan Balta's best position is left back. In midfield the pairing of Sarp and Ayhan is solid but lacks creativity. I would prefer to see Arda, Sarp, Baris Ozbek and Kewell in there and play Keita with Baros up front. Still I'm not the coach and so far apart Rikjaard seems to be getting things right.

The big test though is this weekend with the first GS-FB derby match of the season. Given last weeks result in Antep and the fact that the gap is only 2 points now I am sure that pressure is already being applied to the referee for the match to ensure another dodgy FB victory with plenty of red cards for GS you know for complaining about having smoke bombs thrown at their heads etc.....

Before that through is a small matter of Dinamo Bucharest in the Europa League so Rikjaard will need to make some careful decisions about the team he plays on Thursday to ensure he has the best team available for Sunday.

Run ends

So after becoming UEFA's team of the month and having not lost a game and hardly conceded a goal CimBom's run ended thanks to a rather bizarre goal conceded against Eskisehirspor.

This was probably Galatasaray's worst performance so far this season. Even though the game was mostly played in Eskisehirpsors half of the pitch there were not that many real clear cut goal scoring opportunities unless you ignore the 3 gold plated ones that Keita managed to waste. He really should have had a hat-trick before half time and those misses came back to result in 2 points wasted after one of the 2 chances they had resulted in a massive deflection and a goal. Thats football I guess but really we should have been out of sight by halftime. I have a feeling Rijkaard will be reminding the players that they have to play for all of the 90 minutes and that 1-0 is not a good scoreline. So now the Kadikoy mob who have playing dismal football are somehow top of the League with amazingly a 100% record.

Having said that CimBom never appeared to be in danger of losing this game as Eskisehirspor hardly threatened and the GS defence even without Emre Asik and Zan is looking solid with Ugur an able deputy to Hakan Balta who has been playing central defence the last couple of games.

Next up on Thursday are Sturm Graz in the Europa League at Ali Sami Yen and I really hope we get a better result than last time we played them. I would expect to see Elano and Baros starting this one as well as Ayhan who was on the bench for Sundays match in place of Nonda and Mehmet Topal and maybe Sarp. But lets see.

6 more goals

So after the expected win over Besiktas last weekend it was a short hop over to Athens to put the Greeks firmly in their place with a 3-1 win over Panathinaikos in the first match of the Europa League group stage. Elano with 2 and Baros with the other, the only blemish on an otherwise excellent display was the goal conceded.

Then it was back to reality on Monday night with the short trip to Kasimpasa. By the way what is it with all of these Monday night matches? They used to be a very rare occurrence but now seem to happen every week, what happened to Friday night, Saturday and Sunday evening, those are the correct times for football not Monday. Anyway as I was saying reality hit rapidly with the poorest performance of the season rescued by Nonda with three goals in about 20 mins in the second half.

Although its the reality of modern day football with all the matches to be played but the constant changing of the team hardly helps the continuity needed to be consistently good. Still it was three more points, even if I had no nails left after the game and a potentially tricky match out of the way. Next up is Eskisehirspor who have re-established themselves in the Super Lig and a team who embarrassed CimBom last season so lets hope we give a better performance this year.

Lions eat eagles

Well well well.

Last season must have been a vintage year for overachievers as the champions were comprehensively outplayed with a score line that could have been worse. Also Sivas were beaten 3-1 by Manisa leaving Sivas with no points after 4 matches.

Anyway back to the matter in hand. The team was pretty much as expected with Baros as a single striker supported by Kewell, Keita and Arda with Mustafa Sarp and Mehmet Topal as the defensive midfield.

Mustafa Sarp is looking like an extremely good buy as he ghosted in at the rear post in the 4th minute to head Ardas corner in unmarked. Following that were two goals by Baros as the goal king started to fire. Kewell should have had 2 goals as well but somehow failed to convert two excellent chances.

Overall an excellent performance that underlines just where the power has swung in the SuperLig, played 5 won 5 and it looks like a straight fight between GS and Brazilbahce this season, of course things can change but the way Rijkaard has got the team playing it is looking good. Having Elano on the bench was a bonus although when he came on it seemed like the team balance was changed somewhat and it took a later adjustment to balance things up when Baris came on to be the ball winner.

Walk in the Park

Monday night in Ankara, must be 3 points and it was. A routine victory over a somewhat limited Ankaraspor, looks like the rumors swirling over at the Round Ball in Ankara may have an element of truth in them, dismember the team, get relegated and disappear. I mean last season there were 4 teams from Ankara in the SuperLig and looks like this will be reduced to 2 at the end of this season whihc is probably about the right number.

So two goals in the second half from Kewell and Nonda took GS back to the top of SuperLig after the Kadikoy mob had briefly held that position thanks to some rather inconsistent refereeing. Having stoped Manisa because one of their forwards was offside even though the ball was not played to him, 2 minutes later the same happened at the other end with the offside player eventually scoring but where was the whistle??? Of course not...

We added another player to the roster yesterday, Caner Erkin who had been playing at CSKA Moscow. He is a left winger so is Arda on the way out?

Next up is Besiktas in the first Istanbul derby of the season. On from this should be a straight forward win for CimBom but form in derbies tends to go out of the window and last season GS were very bad against their main rivals. I have a feeling it may be different this season as BJK will also have one eye on their upcoming Champions League elimination...

Europa League

CimBom cruised into the Group Stages of the Europa League with a 1-1 tie with Tallinn giving a 6-1 overall victory.

Today the draw was made for the group stae and we have been drawn with Panathinaikos, Sturm Graz and Dinamo Bucharest.

Those are three clubs with European form.

Dinamo have reached the European and Cup Winners Cup semi finals in the 1980's and during 2006/7 beat Besiktas, admittedly not that difficult, en route to the knockout stages of the UEFA Cup. Like a lot of Eastern European Clubs the sweeping away of communist regimes led to problems in the 90's as the financing of the clubs was severely affected but this is a team we should not take lightly.

Panathinaikos founded in 1908 just 3 years after GS is like the FB of Greece, that is the number 2 team in Greece. A good solid team in Europe they are managed by Henk Ten Cate and the forward line is led by Djbril Cisse. The game with these guys will likley be long on emotion and short on quality but interesting none the less.

Sturm Graz are an Austrian team founded in 1909. We have come across them before in the 2000 Champions League Group stages with a 3-0 loss in Austria and a 2-2 in Istanbul they are not fondly remembered.

So all in all an interesting group but with the the current squad and Rijkaard in charge I am cautiously optimistic we will get through. At least this season the competition has home and away matches rather than last season when it was single match against each team.

Next up in the SuperLig is Ankaraspor away on Monday. Given the turmoil in the Ankara clubs this season I would expect a win but teams always raise their game against CimBom so nothing should be taken for granted.