A first half strike from Pablo Batalla was enough to take all three points for Bursa over the weekend.
Felipe Melo’s penalty kick grabbed a point for Gala at their Turk Telekom Arena against Antalyaspor after Emrah Bassan opened the scoring for the visitors.
On Saturday, the league leaders will travel to Gaziantep to face Gaziantepspor. Milan Baros will be suspended for that game due to the direct red card he received against Antalya for arguing with the referee.
The Istanbul based side has had to cope with the loss of star right back Emmanuel Eboue due to international duty for the Ivory Coast in the African Cup of Nations. He has missed the last three games and is expected to miss the next two. His absence has caused problems on the right side of the defense since his back-up, Sabri Sarioglu, has been playing at a less-than-average level. Eboue has scored two goals thus far into the season.
Coach Fatih Terim has transferred two new additions to the team with one of them being a former number ten for the club, Necati Ates. The other addition was twenty-one year old Yigit Gokoglan of Vestel Manisaspor. Yigit has scored one goal in two appearances while Necati is still to make his debut since his deal was just finalized yesterday.
The one player who has played every game this season is none other than Selcuk Inan. After arriving in Istanbul this past summer from Trabzonspor, he has scored more goals so far for his new club than he has for any other in one year. The most he had ever scored in one season was five for Vestel Manisaspor back in the 2008/2009 season. After less than 20 games for GS, he has already managed to score seven. He has also assisted his teammates nine times.
Two unexpected young stars that stepped up their game this season are GS youth products Semih Kaya and Emre Colak.
Emre Colak featured for Gala last season and managed to gain the attention of his coaches, teammates, and fans. He was seen to be the replacement of Arda Turan who would later on join La Liga side Atletico Madrid. Emre has scored three times so far this season.
Semih Kaya has been trusted to play center back ahead of Servet Cetin and has done an admirable job. One of his best performances was during the Istanbul derby at home against arch rival Fenerbahce. His assignment was none other than their captain, Alex de Souza. He did manage to grab a late consolation goal for the visitors in which GS were 3-1 victors on the night.
Galatasaray sit atop the league with 51 points after 24 games. Fenerbahce are breathing down their backs as they sit right behind them with 48 points of their own. The two sides will meet for the second time in regular season play at Fenerbahce’s Sukru Saracoglu stadium on Sunday, March 18th, 2012. Before that tough match-up, Galatasaray will host other Istanbul rival Besiktas, whom they tied 0-0 in the first meeting at Besiktas’s Fiyapi Stadium. They will be two big games that can determine who finishes in first place.
However, this year even if Gala does finish in first, there will be a play-off system to take place after the regular season for the first time in history. The reason for this is due to match fixing that occurred last year. After a summer of intense investigation, the Turkish Futbol Federation has decided to instill the play-off system, making them the only major European soccer league to do so.
This may not be fair to the team that finishes first, but it will bring more soccer for the fans to enjoy and an interesting twist to crown the new champions of Turkey.
