Watching Galatasaray is just asking for a heart attack- Bellinzona 3-4 Galatasaray

By: Musab | September 18th, 2008

Since I had class, I coldnt watch this match live, but I was able to watch it afterwards. Good thing I didn’t watch it live. It was a classic Galatasaray “heart in your throat” match. The defense made every mistake imaginable, the forwards missed plenty of chances, and Lincoln managed to save the team with a 90+4 minute goal.

BELLINZONA-GALATASARAY 3-4
Stadium: St. Jakob-Park
Referee: Sorin Corpodean,Cristian Constantin Nica, Octavian Sovre

BELLİNZONA: Gritti, La Rocca, Mangiarratti, Siqueira-Barras, Bernardet, Gürkan Sermeter (min. 90 Raso), Wahab, Rivera (min. 68 Diarra), Gashi, Lustrinelli( min. 73 Neri), Kalu
Manager: Marco Schällibaum

GALATASARAY: De Sanctis, Serkan Kurtuluş (min. 73 Yaser), Emre, Servet, Volkan, Meira, Ayhan, Lincoln, Kewell, Baros, Nonda (min. 61 Aydın)
Manager: Michael Skibbe

Goals:: Lustrinelli (min.. 32), Kewell (min. 39), Gürkan (min. 47), Baros (min. 51, 80)
Yellow Cards: Kewell, Meira, Diarra
Red Card: Gashi

The yellow-reds just completely dominated gameplay. Passes were good, opposing players were passed by with easy, the team showed that they wanted to win the match. However from the start they began to miss. Nonda had a pretty hard day as his lack of speed showed itself today on the pitch. And as we all know, if you don’t score, you’ll be scored upon. Bellinzona took a 1-0 lead after the defense made another hash of an ball they should of handled easily.

And Galatasaray once again began where they left off, as Nonda missed his third easy chance for goal. However it was Harry Kewell who stepped in for the team as he masterfully took control of a long passs then slammed it into the far right side netting from just outside the penalty box. The second half started off with another defense idiocy as Gurkan Semter, a Swiss player of Turkish descent, scored an easy goal.

Finally Lincoln was put oto the match and he immeidatly began playing reat football. In the 51st min. his great cross was met by Milan Baros’ head for Milan’s first goal with the Lions. A Bellinzona player saw a red card after kicking out as Emre Asik in the 60th minute. Perhaps this is what really changed the game as Bellinzona decided that the 2-2 draw would be good enough for them and began to play with a more defense-oriented gameplan. In the 80th min. a huge and costly mistake by the Bellinzona defense was intercepted by Milan Baros who managed to round the keeper and score Galatasaray’s third goal of the night.

However what is a Galatasaray without a late match goalfest? In the 89th minute Bellinzona tied the match up at 3-3 after a corner kick that was meat by a Bellinzona player. Finally in the 90+4 minute Lincoln managed to take a long range shot which found the net and saved the team. Mind you this is not the only time Lincoln has scored a dramatic game-winning goal from yards out.

Some small points:

1. Milan Baros- On his first match in the starting 11, Milan scored two very well taken goals. His speed and agility were second to none on the pitch. For us to get the best out of Milan we need Lincoln to deliver more of those sweet, sweet through balls for Milan to run to and score.

2. Lincoln- Speaking of the devil, Lincoln had a really great performance out there. His through balls were excellent and he once again saved his team with a long range goal. Let’s hope this will be what is needed for him to once again get back to his old form.

3. The defense minus Meira- The defense was horrific today. Bellinzona only attacked us four times in the entire 90 minutes of the game and yet they scored three goals. You just can’t concede three goals and hope to seriously challenge for the UEFA Cup.