The problem with this Galatasaray team is very simple. If it can’t find open spaces where it can play football, it simple doesnt have the strength to defeat its opponent. Our defenders are unable to play the ball succesfully and our star players are easily lost when they aren’t given the ball. Rijkaard is trying to overcome this by playing players out of their natural position in defense (Caner Erkin as a left back) And while this sometimes works, overall it isnt as succesful. During the transfer window, before we went and got Elano, I stated on this site that Galatasaray needs to spend very big money (~$10 million) on a very high class defender that can use the ball effectively. Unfortunantly we went into the season with only adding Gokhan Zan as a central defender on a free transfer.

Another important point is the fact that Mustafa Sarp has strayed away from his early season form and I believe that it is time we give him a break. Unfortunantly both Mehmet Topal and Ayhan are playing way under their ability. This would be the perfect time for Linderoth to come in and save the day but unfortunatly the Galatasaray board dont see any problem with paying a million dollar salary to a player who hasnt played in 15 games for us in three years.

PANATHİNAİKOS-GALATASARAY: 1-3
Venue: Athens OAKA Stadium
Referees: Paolo Tagliavento, Luca Maggiani, Elenito Di Liberatore (Italy)

Yellow Cards: min. 19 Sarriegi, min. 44 Leo Franco, min. 56 Spropoulos; min. 69 Emre Aşık, min. 87 Uğur Uçar

Overall I was pleased with the performance Galatasaray put out. The defense was very effective given the injuries the have befallen it. Despite the consolation goal Panathinaikos won, we saw good, effective performances by Emre Asik and Hakan Balta. Keita once again showed his class as he danced around the Panathinaikos players with the ball ans was a threat to their defender throughout the game.

Milan Baros seems to get his goal scoring boots in place as he continues scoring in the games he plays in, in the League, Europe, and for his country. Let’s hope for more goals in the future. It was interesting to see young Arda sit on the bench for this game especially as he started to show signs of fatigue. Elano took his place in the starting 11 and responded with two goals in an equally good performance from the Brazilian playmaker.

This was probably our most challenging game and after coming through with a victory, its fair to say our chances of getting past the group stages are pretty high. Lets hope we can keep the momentum going this weekend as we travel to lowly Kasimpasa. Expect some serious squad rotation.

Opinions? Thoughts? Leave a comment below and join in the discussion!

GALATASARAY: 1 ANKARAGÜCÜ: 0
Stadium: Kadir Has
Referees: Suat Aslanboğa, Özgür Çetiner, Selçuk Kaya

Goal: min. 13 Baros (P)
Yellow Cards: Baros, Lincoln, Emre Aşık, Ceyhun, Jaba
Red Card: Bouzid
A case of too little too late as Galatasaray are now seven points away from new leaders Besiktas. Second place and the Champions League spot that goes with it is 5 points away. Given the fact the we play the second place team, Sivasspor on the last game of the season, nothing is impossible, but we need to win our games.

Reports are coming this week that Galatasaray will try to replace Bulent with Bernd Schuster after the season ends. I’ve always stood up for Bulent and have protected him from the harshest of critics. But if we can bring someone with the experience of Bernd Schuster, then I wouldn’t have a problem with seeing him go. If you can get a better manager then fine, fire him. But if your going to bring another lower class manager (see:Skibbe), then dont even bother.

Overall Galatasaray dominated the game. Fener (smartly) played a defensive game from the outset, seeing as to how they didn’t have Alex on their part. However Fener was horrific last night. They consistently gave away balls to our players and rarely got into the tempo of the game. Fener never looked like they were going to come and defeat us. The fact that Gokhan Gonul was injured in the game and that Edu is out for the season meant that Galatasaray should have had no diffculty in breaching their defense.

Which leads us to the main story. Galatasaray’s inability to defeat one of the wekest Fener sides I have seen in a long time. Despite trying their best and putting together many good solid passes, they never once seemed in a position to actually go and defeat Fener by the margin they should have won by. Umit Karan was not existant. Kewell showed his ability here and there, but nothing too serious. Ayhan was very far from his season long good form.

The reason for Galatasaray’s poor form today is very easy to understand. It’s the same reason why this season has been so horrfiic for us. The players are in such poor physical condition that they are unavle to play efficient football for 90 minutes straight. As a result some get injured, others just stop trying as soon as the pains come along. It’s also the reason why our defenders have conceded so many goal this season. Defenders need to always be alert and in the game. When they get tired, theyre minds are no longer in the game, leading to huge blunders on their part.

Too bad they had enough energy to go and try to beat the living shit out of each other. In the dying moments of the game, Fener Bastard Diego Lugano decided to headbutt Emre Asik from behind which led to a brawl between the two sides. At the end when all the handbags were thrown about, Arda and Emre Asik were given red cards while Semih and Lugano were sent off on their part. A fan made in onto the pitch but was quickly tackled and arested with some pretty brutal efficiency. All in all it was a fitting end for both sides.

Mehmet Topal was perhaps the only good player on the pitch. Despite being forced to play in the central defense, he was flawless and rarely did he lose out to Guiza. Emre Asik did his best at the age of 35 while Arda tried to get something going but for some reason he seemed very stressed out throughout the match, and eventually let it out on Semih.

Something that made me happy was the tons of abuse thrown towards Aziz Yildirims Pet Bitch. For a five million dollars a year, he seems to be the perfect leech on Fener.

It seems that were going to finish this season without any trophies. I personall am now goin to support Sivas to win the league. I just can’t watch Besiktas become champions, but I’d love to see their hearts get crushed.

GAZİANTEPSPOR: 0 GALATASARAY: 1

Goal: Min. 10 Baros (Galatasaray)
Yellow Cards: Emre Aşık, Baros (Galatasaray)

A very effective if lackluster performance by the CimBom, but getting three points ahead of the big match was the main idea. Bulent decided not to bring Lincoln because apparently hes not match fit. Dead man walking…

The match started off with a range of Antep attacks which were held off until Kewell got in a cross that was deflected up high for Milan who proceded with a overhead kick into the back of the net. Season goal 24, league goal 18 for him.

Other than that there were a few other chances for goal for both teams. All in all the game probably should have been a draw, but this precious away win was vital for our cause. One positive from the match was the defense. Despite this being a makeshift Motley Crue of defense, Hakan and Emre did their jobs pretty well, a big comfort ahead of this weekends derby. 35 year old Emre played better than that 7 million Euro Portuguese captain. My take on why Hakan is able to perform so well in central defense is because of his gamestyle. Hakan is known for being cool and not making mistakes easily in his left back position. Quite frankly id prefer that over Sabri’s “run-shoot-run-repeat” style of play.

Overall it was a better course of events for the CimBom as the derby draws near. Here’s to hoping for a victory this weekend. I’ll have some pre-derby coverage posts until Sunday.

I blame today’s loss on all of the injured players. If they’re not men, they shouldn’t be playing professional football.

I’d also like to extend a heartfelt “Fuck you” to our Brazilian Bastard Lincoln. Who the fuck are you to curse at a real legend? Bulent doesn’t have time to appease your sorry washed up ass. This summer we’ve just gotta bite the bullet and send him packing. Put him into the “failed transfer” bin. An additional fuck you goes out to the jealous Fenerli’s and Besiktasli’s who openly supported Hamburg and according to, Martin Jol, gave detailed info on Galatasaray’s style of play.

Feel free to leave any other statements on anger, surprise, and just plain disappointment below as well as any Anti-Bulent bullshit.

HAMBURG: 1 GALATASARAY: 1

Goals: min. 49 Jansen (Hamburg) min. 32 Ayhan (Galatasaray)
Red Card: Emre Aşık
Yellow Cards: Guerrero, Boateng (Hamburg) Barış, Volkan Yaman, Arda (Galatasaray)

I’m not gonna say much about this match, seeing as to how I couldn’t watch live (thanks to class), and not at the 6:00 replay (Thanks to other plans). From what I understand, the squad was very organized and Hakan Balta did an okay job in defense. They held their ground for the first 15 min, and it was obvious that they wouldn’t lose this match after that.

They found the goal before half time after a Hamburg miscue to a wide open Ayhan who found the bottom right corner. With that vital away goal in our pockets, the team went ahead and conceded a goal thanks to another defensive error. To top it all off, Emre Asik was red carded after bringing down the last man leaving us without any central defenders left in the squad.

Let’s also give a shoutout to Hasan Sas who returned from injury today. Let’s hope he can get back to being the vital part of this team we know he can be.

Hopefully this away goal will be enough to see us through to the next stage. Any opinions? Feel free to comment on the match and where we go from here.

KONYASPOR: 0 – GALATASARAY: 1
Stadium: Atatürk
Referees: Tolga Özkalfa, Serkan Gençerler, Muhittin Gürses

Yellow Card: min. 55 Cihan (Konyaspor) min. 74 Sabri, min. 76 Meira (Galatasaray)

Now that was one piss-poor match. Perhaps the most nauseating display of football I’ve had the displeasure of watching this season. I’ll make it simple, Veysel took was one-on-one with the keeper but he missed. Arda latched onto a defensive mistake and scored. Bulent Bolukbasi had a chance but missed. That’s it.

I guess after the roller cycle trip that we were viciously forced on, we can’t really expect top-class footy. Not yet at least. Bulent had to get immediate results if he wanted to silence some of his early critics and for us to continue with our hopes for titles. That being said, there weren’t too many defensive blunders against a Konyaspor that absolutely deserves to be relgated to the second league. Konya never seemed threatening at all and they were justly defeated in their own stadium as they ebb slowly toward the relegation zone. Giray Hoca’s got a long and tough road ahead of him.

Well the state of the defense just gets worse by the week. Emre Asik’s been injured and Sabri will miss the next match because of yellow card accumulation. So at this point we have no right backs and only a Meira in very poor form in central defense. All of these injuries are a result of poor training and unprofessionalism which have effectively destroyed this team. Thanks Skibbe.

With Sivas’ lost at Fener, there’s now 5 points between us and joint leaders Trabzon and Sivas. Next week Bursa pay us a visit, the reverse fixture of which we lost 2-1. It’ll be another tough fight for the CimBom as theyll struggle to put together a formidable starting 11.

February was a tough month for the CimBom faithful. Here’s to hoping that March will see our fortunes pick up once again under Bulent Korkmaz.

GALATASARAY-BORDEAUX 4-3

Goals: Bellion (min. 1), Arda (min. 42, 65), Kewell (min. 45), Chamakh (min. 73), Cavenaghi (min. 75), Sabri (min. 90)
Yellow Cards: Mehmet Topal, Baros, Barış, Diawara, Chalme, Cavenaghi

Since I wasn’t home today (stupid afternoon German class), I tried soooo hard to not learn the score so I could catch the 6:00 Setanta replay. But despite me warning everyone not to tell me about the goals, i recieved a flood of text messages at half time ranging from “So how are we gonna beat Hamburgers?” to “4-3 we win”. So I guess I was a bit more analytical when I was watching the match.

We played very poorly in the first half. Baros was lost in the Bordeaux defense and Lincoln was nowhere to be found. All of this after Meira’s failure to deal with the simplest of through balls led to a Bellion goal. Turks: 1 Foreigners: 0. What provided the crucial breakthrough was a lucky goal from Golden Boy Arda Turan. His shot bounced along the pitch and found the net after Wendel failed to clear the ball in time. A couple of minutes later late in the first half, Harry Kewell pulled off a piece of absolute magic after shooting a powerful left footed shot into the top right corner of the net (from the right side of midfield mind you) from over 35 meters out. Harry’s technique and class has done wonders for this team. With a core of Turkish youngsters that fight for the ball and gain possession, and the likes of Lincoln and Kewell to add that little bit of extra technique to get the ball for Baros who in turns expertly finds the back of the net, we should be able to defeat any team before us. However as the season passes, we see it’s not all that easy.

The second half saw a more effective Galatasaray that still possesed the desire from the first half to get out there and win. Another master pass from Lincoln allowed little Arda to find the back of the net from close range. It seemed everything was going our way until another horror show by the defense saw Cavenaghi feed the ball to a wide open Chamakh as the Morrocan international calmly passed the ball into the back of the net. Three minutes later De Sanctis and Emre Asik decided to give a lesson to little kids everywhere as to what NOT to do when a cross is played to the penalty box. They collided and Cavenaghi was there to finish the dirty deed.

At this point Galatasaray was expected to go out crashing after throwing away a two goal lead. And yet it was just not to be. The Football Gods decided to allow Galatasaray to live and continue on their path to Kadikoy after allowing Sabri’s fantastic shot from outside of the penalty box to find the back of the net. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that the 40,000 footy fans inside the 23,000 capacity Ali Sami Yen tore the stadium apart.

And so ends another European Night at the Ali Sami Yen episode. Did we tear apart our hair? Yes. Did we curse in front of little children? Yes. Were we left breathtakingly proud of our team? Yes. Then I guess it was a good show.

Man of the match award goes to Arda Turan whos desire to win was the driving force that led us to defeat Bordeaux. In defense of Bordeaux, they didn’t seem to want to defeat us all that much. Their goals came after defensive blunders on our side.

Our opponents now are Bundesliga winners Hamburg, who possess the likes of Olic, Mathijsen, Petric, and Lell. It will be hard seeing as to how we won’t have Baros who will be serving a match ban after today’s yellow card. Let’s not forget that we defeated Hertha Berlin, who are also high up on the Bundesliga table, at Berlin. Surely we can manage to get past Hamburg over two legs, with the second match at the Ali Sami Yen.

Bulent’s first match in charge of us resulted in an absolute goal fest and showed him what this team is about all in one 90 minute period. We score, we also concede. If we can just get this defense in order, then there’s no reason why we can’t win the UEFA Cup and why we can’t still get back into the title race.