(http://www.gazetevan.com/images/news/3431512714.jpg)Last season the Turkish side, Galatasaray S.K finished the league in 5th place after Beşiktaş J.K, Sivasspor, Trabzonspor and Fenerbahçe. Usually Galatasaray finished the league in top three but last season they had some problems with coaches. First Michael Skibbe, the German coach, was sacked in the middle of the season because of some games which Galatasaray unnecessarily lost. Then Bülent Korkmaz became the next coach but he was always criticized because of his defensive playing style. In the end of the season, he left the team too. There were also some big problems with injuries. Galatasaray never played with the complete squad. The chemistry was not so good too. Especially Cassio Lincoln, Brazilian midfielder, couldn't play very well at the second half of the season and created so much problems. And Galatasaray sold team's defensive rock Fernando Meira to Zenit St. Petersburg just before some very critical UEFA Cup matches. All of these problems made Galatasaray finish the season in fifth place.
After the transfer season had started, Galatasaray added some popular and effective players to their squad. Leo Franco, Kader Keita, Gökhan Zan and Mustafa Sarp were some of the new players (yesterday Elano Blumer was transferred from Manchester City as well). And also Frank Rijkaard accepted Galatasaray's offer and became the new coach. They empowered the squad very much before the new season has started to be ready for UEFA Europa League matches and win the championship in Turkish League.
Yesterday night, Galatasaray played against Maccabi Netanya F.C. Before the match was played, some people had thought that Maccabi Netanya will be challenging very much and it would be a difficult game for Galatasaray. As the match started, they seemed to be right. Both sides missed some very important goal opportunities. At 25th minute Maccabi Netanya scored the first goal of the game. Yampolsky's header made the score 1-0. 5 minutes later Galatasaray made the score 1-1 with Hakan Balta's header. In the second half, with Arda Turan's perfect play and his assists, Galatasaray scored 3 more goals. Harry Kewell scored at 47, Sabri Sarıoğlu scored the third goal for his team just 6 minutes later and the last goal of the game was scored by Milan Baros at 73th minute.
It was the best game for Galatasaray since the season had started. In the second qualifying round Galatasaray eliminated Tobol from Kazakhstan with 1-1 and 2-0. Even though I couldn't watch the matches, I heard that Galatasaray couldn't score the goals so easily. But in this game Galatasaray scored 4 goals with their perfect play after they conceded a goal from corner kick. I think that if Galatasaray continue to play their games like they did in Maccabi Netanya match, they can score goals easily with a lot of passes and win the games much easily than last season. Maccabi Netanya... They were not able to do something beneficial against Galatasaray because they neither had enough experience to win the game nor the players in their squad were as good players as Galatasaray's.
In short, Galatasaray seem very advantageous now. Unless Maccabi Netanya don't win the game in Istanbul with 4-0, 5-0, 6-0, 4-1(extra time) or 5-2, 6-2 or with a similar score (At least 3 or 4 goal difference), probably Galatasaray will be playing in the next round.
it was an easy match for galatasaray don't be happy kerem
ReplyDeleteHey! A Turkish team won a match in European arena. It's a good thing :) you're right.. Maccabi Netanya and Honved F.C were too weak and inexperienced to win the match against Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. But GS and FB also played very well in these matches..
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