An improvement of sorts: Kocaelispor 1-4 Galatasaray

By: Musab | September 22nd, 2008

Almost everyone agreed that Galatasaray did not play as well as they should have against Bellinzona. As a result, Skibbe and his boys had something to prove on Sunday. The city of Kocaeli is a mere 1 hour drive from the city of Istanbul, so it can be considered an “Istanbul team” in a way. Many fans of the CimBom remember Kocaelispor for their shock 4-0 victory at the Ali Sami Yen some 10 years ago. The stadium was packed wtih fans, and I’d say they got their money’s worth.

KOCAELİSPOR: 1 – GALATASARAY: 4

Stadium: İzmit İsmetpaşa
Referees: M. Selçuk Dereli, Cem Satman, Erdinç Sezertam

KOCAELİSPOR: Serdar Kulbilge, Dusan, Semavi, Kemal (min. 62 Fransergio), Bülent (min. 62 Adem), Taner, Musa Büyük, Serdar Topraktepe (min. 80 Murat), Tutoriç, Serkan, Ufuk

GALATASARAY: De Sanctis, Meira, Aydın (min. 46 Yaser), Lincoln, Hasan Şaş, Baros, Ayhan, Kewell, Nonda (min. 85 Mehmet), Volkan (min. 75 Alparslan), Servet

Goals: min. 10 Taner (Kocaelispor), mins. 31, 80 Baros, min. 57 Nonda, min. 82 Kewell (Galatasaray)

Yellow Cards: min. 31 Serdar Kulbilge, min. 45 Bülent (Kocaelispor)

The line-up was as many expected as Galatasaray had several injured players such as Arda Turan, Umit Karan, and Mehmet Topal were all out. The starting 11 had 6 foreigners, something unheard of for Galatasaray. The game started off badly for the Lions as they conceeded a mircale goal to Kocaelispor in the 10th minute. For the rest of the first half they struggled to break Kocaeli’s defensive line of 11 players. In the 31 minute, Lincoln made a pinpoint cross to Shabani nonda who headed the ball down for Milan Baros’ first goal in a yellow-red uniform.

The Fenerli’s like to claim that to be a real player for Fenerbahce, you’ve gotta score against Galatasaray. The Besiktasli’s like to say that you can’t become a Besiktasli player, you’ve gotta be born one. What do we say? Just put on that uniform and understand how valuable it is (”O Formanin degerini bileceksin. O forma herkese nasip olmaz!!!!!”). And so with his first goal in his first match with Galatasaray, I’d like to welcome Baros to the family.

The second half started with Nonda missing more chance including one that could be up there as one of the worst misses in footballing history. (How the hell do you miss from 4 meters out???? Give me the money that he makes and I’ll score it for him!) And yet he managed to get another pinpoint cross from Lincoln, control it expertly on his first touch, and then slam it into the top left corner. Quite frankly I’d prefer him missing that instead of the 4 meter screwup.

After falling behind, Kocaeli realized that defending anymore would not help them, and they began to abandon their tactic of lining up 11 men in front of the goalposts and actually tried to get forward. And as expected, the Galatasaray forwards tore them apart with two more goals, one coming after a great pass from youngster Alpaslan Erdem to Milan Baros who scored his second goal and a final goal from Harry Kewell who managed to lay a defender to the ground and snipe it into the bottom right corner.

It’s plain to see that the squads playing better than before, but theres definitely room for improvement. For one, the defense is still making simple mistakes which have consequences on the teams performance. After conceding the early goal, the entire team began to panic and make more mistakes up front. But once we got ahead, the forward line tore apart the Kocaeli defense. This is what we need to replicate every match. We need to get in front so our opponents do not have the luxury of defending with 11 men. In addition, getting in front will raise morale and allow our superior squad to easily score against the weaker Anatolian teams.

One final comment. For over a year, many people and the Turkish media have criticized Lincoln for underperforming to the point that they have called for his transfer out of Galatasaray. For the past two matches, Lincoln has been performing very well and is scoring goals and providing them. He’s also applying himself in training to get himself in form for the team. I really hope that Lincoln will soon return to his old ways and become the superstar we all know he can be.