Antep? I’d prefer Fener- Gaziantepspor 0:1 Galatasaray

By: Musab | April 6th, 2009

I had the pleasure of visiting Antep this summer and it was definitly a positive experience. The largest and most modern of Turkey’s Eastern cities, Antep had everything from cars blaring Turkish and Kurdish folksongs to those fantastic pistachios (I smuggled roughly three bags back home). For a good four years the CimBom hasn’t been able to win at the Kamil Ocak Stadium against an Antep side that’s always been a very respectable team. We defeated them at the Ali Sami Yen by a comfortable 3-0 scoreline before going and losing 4-1 to Fener. Most of the CimBomlu’s eyes are on this weekends derby, a must win for us.

GAZİANTEPSPOR: 0 GALATASARAY: 1

Venue: Kamil Ocak
Referees: M. Kamil Abitoğlu, Erhan Sönmez, A. Yusuf Öz

GAZİANTEPSPOR: Murat Şahin, Deumi, Bekir, Cesar (min. 64 İvan), İsmail, Mehmet Yozgatlı (min. 82 Ahmet Arı), Hakan Bayraktar, Zurita, Murat Ceylan (min. 64 Erman), Tabata, Beto
Interim manager: Seçkin Göksel

GALATASARAY: De Sanctis, Sabri, Emre Aşık, Hakan Balta, Volkan, Kewell, Barış, Ayhan, Arda (min. 90 Serkan) , Baros, Ümit (min. 72 Mehmet Güven)
Manager: Bülent Korkmaz

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.