Turkish Football Federation 0-0 Galatasaray, just another match in the Turkish league

By: Musab | November 23rd, 2008

Nothing happened in the match against Ankaraspor. Seriously. Absolutely nothing happened. Ankaraspor never went forward to attack, and so we just sat back and waited for the ball to magically appear in the opponents net. So therefore I’m not going to discuss the match. What I will discuss is the shambolic state of Turkish football and the way its affecting us.

Last Thursday, Ankaraspor’s old “honorable” president Melih Gokcek went on national TV and accused the referee of their previous week’s encounter with Fenerbahce, of making three blaring mistakes which gave Fener their victory last week. Interesting;y enough he started his rant by stating: “I have always been a Fenerli. I am proud of my team (Fener). When Fener becomes champions, Im very happy and proud of them.

A few hours later Fener’s website posted a classic example of footballing bullshit by stating that “We are not involved in these dirty games” and that “Everything we do we do with our own sweat”. However the very next day, Fener president Aziz Yildirim was caught meeting with Melih Gokcek in a public park and having an hour long conversation, then appearing before cameras hand in hand, looking as gay as could be.

With this in mind let’s go back to Wednsday, a day filled with international friendlies. We now know that Galatasaray footballing director Adnan Sezgin called up the federation to ask for his team’s Saturday night fixture away at Ankaraspor be moved back by at least one day for a couple of reasons:

1. Several players were on foreign duty, many of them on the Turkish national teams at the same stadium where the Fed was watching Turkey take on Austria.
2. Fernando Meira was with the Portuguese squad for a friendly with Brazil. That’s 18 hours both ways. Kewell on teh other hand was with Australia squad.
3. Arda Turan had a serious episode with his hearting beating out of control and was only just released from hospital.
4. In addition to several chronically injured footballers (Emre Gungor, Tobias Linderoth), Lincoln and Mehmet Topal were also inured but were done with their treatments and could make it to the match if the match was held a day or two days later.

And yet the fed decided not to accept Galatasaray’s REASONABLE request, instead giving Adnan Sezgin some serious lip over the propostion. Let’s not forget that this team is the number one supporter of the national team. Whenever the national team has been succesful, the national team was chockfull of Galatasaray players who have always born the weight of the national team. And yet they couldn’t even do this one favor for us. Nice.

Fast forward to Saturday night. Remember Melih Gokcek’s tirade. Fenerbahce has just been held to a draw not three hours ago. Galatasaray is giving the good fight against Ankaraspor. Minute two. Arda Turan is rugby tackled to the ground. No booking. Free kick. Arda Turan is held with two arms and is dragged down to the ground just before he can touch the ball into the back of the net. Referee has his eye on them two the whole time.

So why is the referee destroying our chances? Maybe it’s to appease Melih Gokcek after his vicious rant on Thursday? Maybe Melih Gokcek was acting on Fener’s behalf? Would explain his meeting with Fener’s satanical president. Just more example of a league that’s spiraling out of control. And yet our idiots can’t open their mouths in protest. If this happened to them…Ohohohoh…. There would be hell to pay.

Let’s ignore this scandal. Let’s focus on the match shall we? We see a stadium that is beyond third world. For those of you that don’t know the Yenikent ASAS stadium, it’s in the middle of nowhere. You literally have to leave the city, tread through some potato and tobacco farms just to reach it. The grass is 60% dead and withering. On the day of the match, the wind was incredibly strong. It totally ruined the match. Crosses went the wrong way, Keepers couldn’t distribute the ball, even passes were affected. Add to this the fact that Ankaraspor just parked the bus in front of goal and didn’t do anything to win the game. Well, you get the idea. If Ankaraspor had a real stadium to play on, this match could have been a lot different.

And so ends another week in the Turkcell Super Lig.