February 2002
With Galatasaray seemingly struggling to maintain the pace and Fenerbahçe coming to Besiktas to face us in our stadium this month, February could prove to be a key point in the destination of the title for this year.
The Bessies last won the Turkish championship back in 1994 and were all getting a bit over excited at the prospect of us leading going into spring, so I had to fend off several reporters who claimed we were the best thing since a sliced cocaine sandwich on sliced bread and that several of our players, from Kahvici Nihat to Markus Münch to Miroslav Karhan where the second coming of Jesus. And two of his friends.
Impressions of my divinty took a rather nasty blow when we opened February with our first loss of 2002.
We traveled to Samsun to face a Samsunspor side loitering around the WAFER spots and were almost sunk by halftime which they lead 2-0 thanks to goals from Chitiva and Musa. Chitiva made it 3-0 at the start of the second half, before a desperate reshuffle of positions, mentality and tactical focus brought us back into it with goals from
Ayhan and
Baljic, but in pursuit of our third we shipped a fourth to Ilhan.
Big man
Fernand Coulibaly got us within one again, but we couldn't find the game's eighth goal and lost 4-3.
I didn't really want to look the next day as Fenerbahçe and Galatasary ran out for their games, able to close the gap to 3 and 8 points respectively, but it turned out I had little to worry about as the Feners contrived to lose 1-0 at home to bottom-half side Adanaspor and Galatasaray could only steal one point away to Denizlispor.
A lucky escape.
With a sigh of relief we smashed relegation battlers Sakaryaspor 4-0, thanks to a hattrick from
Ahmet Dursun and a free kick from
Elvir Baljic, (now affectionately referred to as "Elvis Ballache"), but then we threated to let the big two close on us again, as we threw away a 2-0 lead away to Gençlerbirligi to finish 2-2, wasting
Dursun's fourth and fifth goals of the month.
This time the other two both won, although Fenerbahçe survived a scare at home to Siirt JETPA to turn a 1-2 halftime score into a 3-2 win.
After we edged past Altay in the Turkish Cup Semi Final 2-0, (
Ayhan and
Coulibaly), we came to crunch time, as Fenerbahçe rolled into Inönü stadium.
The day before the game had brought bad news, as Markus Münch - still our best player, despite still being a fullback - fell over in training with a thigh strain.
Uruguayan
Federico Bergara would switch to DL from DC, with Turk Güraçar "German" Erman coming in for just his 12th start of the league season.
Our team was :
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GK : Soyupak Ilkay - GK - (7.50)
DL : Federico Bergara - DLC -
[FGN] (7.14)
DR : Dmitry Khlestov - DRC -
[FGN] (7.25)
DC : Sead Halilagic - DC - (7.00)
DC : Güraçar Erman - DC - (6.80)
ML : Elvir Baljic © - AML -
[FGN] (7.37)
MC : Tayfun - MRC - (7.44)
MC : Miroslav Karhan - D/DMRC -
[FGN] (
8.22)
MC : Akman Ayhan - AMC - (7.70)
MR : Kahveci Nihat - FRC - (7.78)
FC : Ahmet Dursun - SC - (7.67)
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SB1 : Köse Ekram - GK - (7.58)
SB2 : Abdullah Hakan - DRL - (6.80)
SB3 : Havutçu Tayfur - DMC - (7.08)
SB4 : Eris Ceyhun - AMFC - (6.75)
SB5 : Ulusal Fazli - FC - (7.22)
SB6 : Fernand Coulibaly - SC -
[FGN] (6.93)
SB7 : Özdilek Mehmet - AMC - (7.33)
----------------------------------------
The good news was, Fenerbahçe seemed to be scared of us. The bad news was, Fenerbahçe seemed to be scared of us.
This news led to this formation from them :
Mixed with defensive and "men behind the ball" tactics it meant an early goal was going to be key, to draw out the visitors and prevent frustration.
Our pressing forward didn't work out too well as no one managed a shot in the first 20 minutes, the only excitement coming as Fenerbahçe escaped on a break and Tayfun was booked for hacking down a runner.
Then on 23 minutes, Ahmet Dursun broke away from his marker and put the ball into the mix in the area. The defence stuck their foot in and cleared, but the ball fell to
Elvir Baljic on the edge of the box and the Bosnian lashed it home.
We cruised into half time 1-0 ahead, with the visitors still in their shell, presumably hoping to be awarded a goal for having nice clean shirts, or something.
The second half started off slowly too, until the Feners pushed up their three deep lying midfielders with Abdullah going all the way to AMC, to make it 4-4-1-1 against our 4-5-1.
This brought almost immediate dividends, as Ali Günes broke away from Bergara at left back and sidefooted home.
I was distinctly unsurprised and underwhelmed to see Fenerbahçe immediately retreat back into their ugly 4-3-2-1 formation with three DMs, but we'd scored against it once, so why not again...
20 minutes later we had a free kick on the edge of the box and after Abdullah had had a look at the ref's yellow card, Sead Halilagic stepped up and caned a 25 yarder off the bar. While the woodwork was still vibrating
akman Ayhan picked up the loose ball, dribbled around the keeper and tapped home for 2-1!
Feeling that the Feners were likely to throw everything at us for the last 15, I took off Dursun up front, threw on Coulibaly and switched to a defensive outlook, hoping that the big Mali forward would grab the long punts sent his way.
That seemed to work until 88 minutes showed on the clock when Celil sent the ball into our area to Aygün who slotted home the equaliser... Except he didn't, because the linesman had his flag up.
We sent a long ball forward, Coulibaly grabbed it and shot accurately forcing Reçber Rüstü to tip the ball wide for our corner and from there we ran out the clock!
Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag Won Drn Lst For Ag Pts
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1st Besiktas 23 11 0 0 25 3 8 1 3 27 15 58
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2nd G. Antepspor 23 9 2 1 21 7 6 3 2 23 14 50
3rd Galatasaray 24 10 1 0 31 2 5 3 5 19 14 49
4th Fenerbahçe 23 8 1 2 24 5 7 3 2 19 9 49
5th Samsunspor 23 9 3 0 28 8 6 1 4 18 12 49
6th Trabzonspor 23 8 3 1 19 6 6 3 2 18 13 48
7th Denizlispor 23 7 4 1 21 12 3 2 6 16 23 36
8th Kocaelispor 23 7 3 2 33 18 2 5 4 13 15 35
9th Adanaspor 23 6 4 2 20 11 4 1 6 19 22 35
10th Siirt JETPA 23 6 3 2 20 7 1 5 6 10 17 29
11th Istanbulspor 23 5 1 6 17 19 3 3 5 16 27 28
12th Ç. Rizespor 23 6 1 4 13 11 1 3 8 7 22 25
13th G. Birligi 24 5 3 4 18 20 1 1 10 5 33 22
14th Ankaragücü 23 4 4 4 25 20 1 2 8 9 19 21
15th Altay 23 5 0 6 17 21 0 3 9 13 31 18
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16th Yozgatspor 23 2 3 6 12 20 1 0 11 4 24 12
17th ASASspor 23 2 3 6 16 24 0 1 11 7 32 10
18th Sakaryaspor 23 2 2 8 8 31 0 1 10 2 26 9
Suddenly, Fenerbahçe are in fourth, out of the European spots...
Meanwhile, back at Besiktas there was some weirdness going on. Firstly some guy I have honestly never seen before showed up and asked for a contract extension, which was odd, because I'm sure I played everyone I could find in friendlies, to make sure I knew what was going on.
He got told to get lost, anyway. If I hadn't noticed his absence in the 10 months I'd been here so far, I wasn't going to notice it for the rest of my life.
Then came
Ulusal Fazli. Mr. Fazli had caught my eye in a couple of run outs on the wing and was then given the chance to play up front in the cup - a chance he responded to with five goals and a 8.67 rating in 2(1) games.
So I then started playing him against the weaker club sides in the league and he did ok - nice cover to have.
Then he comes over all "UNH" and tells the press he wants to be "paid what he's worth!"
I have a look and see he's another of Nevio Scala's brilliant moments of clarity, as he's on €26,5000 a week. I roll my eyes and ask him if he'd like to talk about a new contract, trying to imagine what wildly hilarious GDP-of-a-small-African-country number he'll come up with and he asks for €27,000 a week.
I offer €25,000 and one day later he says yes.
Well done, Mr Fazli. You demanded to be paid what you're worth and now you're on €1,500 less a week. I look forward to negotiating with you again.