Galatasaray 2-1 Denizlispor, saved by the gods.

By: Musab | March 23rd, 2008

Galatasaray won today with the help of the gods. With the score tied at 1-1 at the 89th minute, Servet Cetin managed to score a goal cuz of a complete screw-up by the Denizli keeper Hamidou. (see photo below)

G.SARAY:2 DENİZLİSPOR:1

Stadium: Ali Sami Yen
Referee: Aytekin Durmaz
GALATASARAY:Aykut, Sabri, Servet, Emre, Volkan, Barış (min.56 Serkan), M. Topal, Okan, Arda (min.81 Nonda), Ümit, H.Şükür

DENİZLİSPOR: Souleymanou, Bülent (min.60 Murat), Kratochvil (min.45 Çağlar), Fatih Y., Carlos Alberto, Hasan, Abraham, Serhat, Güray, Yusuf, Cesar (min.54 Fatih E.)
Goals: Hasan (min.24) Okan (min. 32) Servet (min. 88)
Yellow Cards: Yusuf, Fatih Y. , Carlos Alberto (Denizlispor) Ümit Karan (G.Saray)

With Fenerbahce winning on Friday and Besiktas losing to Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyespor on Saturday, Galatasaray simply had to win at home against midtable Denizlispor. Galatasaray went into the match without a coach and without a single foreign player. So once again our team was reliant on its youth players and veterans.

Although Denizlispor got the first goal, we were able to find a goal only eight minutes later due to a good header by perhaps the shortest player on the team, Okan Buruk. Watching Okan score after all these years truly brought a tear to my eyes. A true Galatasaray legend.

One of the biggest problem with Galatasaray is that if we can’t score a goal in the first 20 minutes, the team, which is filled with youngsters, goes into panic mode and can’t put three passes together. I can only wonder as to what would have happen if Okan hadn’t scored his goal.

After getting the first goal, the boys went all out trying to get the second. Denizlispor had 11 players on the defense in the wake of the avalanche of yellow and red. But we simply couldn’t break through. Arda missed a couple, Hakan missed a couple, Umit missed a couple, it was a classic Galatasaray “tear your hair” match.

Then in the 88th minute, as I got up to stop watching the match, a seemingly harmless ball found its way to the Denizli keeper who by some twisted fate let the ball slip out of his hand and Servet simply touched the ball into the back of the net.

2-1 to the Cimbom.

To be honest, the football wasn’t all that bad. Its just that the youngsters can’t score as their supposed to. If only our foreign players weren’t all injured or deemed “unfit to play”