Divine Protection

When the angels look after you, you don't get any harm from anything. Usually this happens not because you deserve this protection or anything but maybe it's simply your turn to be reminded that there are certain forces in nature deciding which team will advance and which team will close up the shop.

In this year's campaign, we have witnessed above mentioned abnormality quite often. I guess one of the obvious one was the last 25 seconds of the Dynamo Kiev match. Another one was the last minute of the Tel Aviv away game in which Q7 was touched by an angel. Last night's 2nd leg with Braga was also such a dramatic example in which all the nail biting situations stretched throughout the game, not so squeezed in a magical minute. Having said that one must be surely state that Braga was a much better team than us. No wonder they were one of the finalists of the very same competition last year.

We have seen the worst Beşiktaş performance of the whole season last night. From the coach, to the medical staff everyone simply had a very bad day. On a normal day, we should have lost the game 4-1 or 5-2, but losing only 1-0 had sufficed for us to go next round at the end with a 2-1 aggregated result.

Before the game, I mean way before during the day, the news of the resignation of all board members and the president found its way to the squad much faster than anything. In my opinion, this was the first leg of several reasons that have psychologically affected the players. Secondly, the squad came out with a formation that has no forward players at all!? Almeida, Pektemek, Edu, Holosko were all either benched or left out of the 18 player team sheet. This formation of 4-6-0 may have worked a week before -especially when our opponents were reduced to 10 men-, however it was very clear that it will be nightmare for all Beşiktaş fans within the first 5 minutes into the game, in which we have seen Beşiktaş pulled back so much so that the game was literally played completely within the Beşiktaş half. All season long we have seen that this team cannot be pulled back, and if you do, every opponent have scored a goal without a skip. Last examples were the away game in Sivas and home game against Belediye that we couldn't kept the ball a few minutes more away from our goal line.

Long expected goal came in 24th minute by the Brazilian Lima, who was one of the targets of Beşiktaş transfer committee, -or we shall say Mendez's agency- last summer. Then the only positive thing of the night happened; introduction of Almeida. This move have proved to be a working one as the team started to move forward a little bit more. We were still looking to the legs of Q7 whom may have produced a thing or two and a dangerous shot in second half but nothing more. Almeida was the lone cowboy trying to make something out of poor crosses most of the time and his efforts were not effective as well. On one occasion though, he should have scored when he was almost one on one with the keeper just before the end of first half.

The minutes never seemed like moving as we have probably counted every second of the game towards the end. When I saw Pierre Luigi Collina in the stands, I had a sense of relief, as I know that he is a bit of a good luck charm to Turkish clubs. Later on I have learned that he was observing the referee for future references. When Tanju got injured, the medical staff took so long to make a call and we have played 10 men for a few minutes as well. Cenk Gönen started to look like he was very unreliable between the posts towards the end.



I have strongly disagree with Carvalhal's last choice of substitution. Not only the timing was a disaster but also adding another defensive player in the last 3 or 4 minutes made the whole team just sit and wait without creating a counter threat at all. He should have introduced Pektemek at least 20 minutes prior to the end, so that we could have kept the ball away from our half, and maybe even scored a goal fishing the game right there and then. However, our defensive minded coach decided in a different way, and even though we have gotten the result barely and qualified for the last 16, I don't think this mentality will take us further into another step especially having seeded against Atletico Madrid, who was the champions of 2010 season in Europa League.

The only man standing was our German Chancellor candidate Fabian Ernst. He was literally everywhere pressing, defending, passing and had given his full capacity to the utmost point. Especially Necip's exit have added more responsibility to him and Braga squad got quite irritated by his presence. He got cautioned by the referee later on and he was tried to be pulled back in for an argument so many occasions. Unlike Fernandes, he did not fall into this trap and completed the whole 90 minutes of this thrill ride.

Now, within 48 hours, we will face the league leaders Galatasaray, whom will have been played nothing for 9 days prior to this fixture!? To be honest with you, I do not give a rat's ass if we would win or loose as long as I see our boys put their hearts out there just like the Fenerbahçe fixture couple of matches ago. To me European arena matters the most and this chaotic and unjust domestic league is simply became a hunch on our shoulders that is very hard to carry on. Don't get me wrong, this is not an excuse but it's just a statement for a lost of belief for the system of Turkish Soccer and those who control it.



Next stop is Atletico for me, and the rest of the fixtures have gone out of the window long time ago already. Godspeed...

Conspiracy Theories

Couple of weeks ago, we, the Beşiktaş fans were really excited with the news of our beloved? president's possible candidacy for the Turkish Football Federation. That early wave got cut-off with other, desired or could-be appointed candidates like Şenes Erzik, number 2 man in UEFA. However, the acts that play a huge role in such conflict of interest, in which western civilizations do care about much more than some other third world countries thus Mr. Erzik's appointment recipe got denied.

Having the local boys plugged a possible comeback of the resigned Mehmet Ali Aydılar, all eyes were turned into this dark tunnel once more to bring up another candidate and jump-start the rolling wheels of rescue plans once more. Today, especially in the Turkish social media users created another giant splash by Demirören's presidency move and all possible scenearios were placed into the display of the lobbies of the interested parties.

Beşiktaş fans are happy because they will finally get rid of their rich, spoiled and ignorant president. They wouldn't care less if he would rule the universe after Beşiktaş, they simply can not stand him anymore... Fenerbahçe fans must be happy as well, since he kept saying to rescue them and even proposed a moratorium for appearing in the international arena in order to clean up domestically. This, of course would be a total catastrophe in terms of economics, and Galatasaray would object it the most, having almost guaranteed to qualify for the Champions League next year.

So, what would Demirören's Federation Presidency could bring into this chaos? It seems that there is a flip side of the coin for this runaway train that Demirören is so eager to jump in.

1: UEFA accounting investigators were looking into official federation papers last month in İstanbul for the transfers of Zapotochny and Sivok from Udinese couple of years ago. They may ban Besiktas for any new transfers at the end of this investigation.

2: Club's financial crisis is deep there is actually couple of lawsuits filed from the debtors who asks for technical bankruptcy of the club.

3: Upon this financial crisis and the debt that grow enormously with the help of Demirören himself UEFA will ban Beşiktaş to compete in European Arena with the upcoming procedural UEFA financial fair play criteria.

Don't forget that there is a regular financial congress meeting on the 26th of February and such news would definitely be not welcomed for those who shall approve the economic acts of the current president. This, in return would automatically cease the powers of Demirören's presidency and a new election shall take place within a month just as it happened to his cousin Adnan Polat almost a year ago. In that case, Polat was ousted and there is no way back for him to return to the presidency. However, if Demirören would resign by himself in order to save? Turkish football, he may return to the presidency after the rescue plans would complete.

Let me cut to the chase and provide my conspiracy plans as I have mentioned in the title:

For prolonged years, Demirören became a mockery for both Beşiktaş fans and opponents and inmost cases this had even turned into an hatred for his acts in his terms of presidency. There is no doubt about his love of Beşiktaş and we all know that he comes from the stands as well. He was just a rich kid, a lucky kid who doesn't know how to manage and he just doesn't agree with that managing part. I think all this time -just like in Godfather- he kept his friends close and wanted to keep his enemies closer, such as Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray presidents. This is why he used the phrase; "Our Fenerbahçe" or met with Adnan Polat couple of years ago in Reina just to state that he would prefer Galatasaray's championship.

In my opinion, in case of a Turkish Football Federation presidency, Demirören will once and for all clear all the tabs with everyone by relegating Fenerbahçe and punishing heavily those who have messed up. This move will definitely restore the credibility of Turkey in the eyes of FIFA and UEFA as well as the credibility of Demirören himself in the eyes of Beşiktaş fans for a possible comeback to his beloved club's presidency in return.

I really would like to believe that this would happen. Even though this would be a miracle and it would only be a conspiracy as I can only dream about. In truth, time will tell what will be the outcome even though one thing is certain at this point; chaos...

On the other hand, UEFA ban or ultimatum for paying the debts will be the breaking point, in which he will pay it all in one shot, by selling the clubs majority shares. And who will buy them for such nice cheap prices? Of course, Demirören himself will! This way he will finally and completely own his favorite toy at last. Ah, of course, he would state that he is doing this for Beşiktaş so that no one else would buy the shares and places club's future into jeopardy... Yeah, right...

Shhhhhhh... do not sabotage, we will go into the play-offs...

Should we BRAG About it?

Well I know it's been a while that I didn't hit any keystroke lately, and I also know lame jokes about Braga victory have already been done about a million times already. However, I couldn't hold of myself. So sue me! :)

To be honest with you I still feel exhausted or burned out to be exact in terms of blogging and even following Turkish League this year. Everything's so fake. The worst part is everybody knows this and everyone accepts it. Cheaters are not punished, Federation officials became all liars and ran away in order to save their beloved clubs, politicians adds up the last drop and the whole mess continues just to create bigger turmoils.

I guess the first defensive statement of a person who still continues to watch the league this year is; "Well, I only follow my team, others don't interest me at all", just like the Turkish saying if the snake doesn't touch me, let it live a thousand years... However, the snake touches everyone, and most of us have chosen to bury our heads into the sand for a long time. At the end, we clearly see that this whole mess that was created by the club officials, will continue full steam as long as they will rule the Turkish Football the same way that they have been ruling for ages. I mean come on now, would it called an election if there's only one runner for the presidency? And that's exactly what's been going on for as long as I remember in TFF. Anyways, I'm sick and tired of this situation like so many others and I just wanted to write about our latest Europa League venture.

After losing three straight games and an away draw we clearly lost our championship chances this year. Even though there will be the ridiculous play-off at the end, the performance shows a very slim chance to come back to the top, in which Galatasaray seems to took off already. There were several reasons for this decline but it should be stated in a season's review or this post will be continue forever. Demirören's non-existent presidency, Carvalhal's January interview about play-off, financial crisis among the players, fixture makers for the league and the punishment system of PFDK would be the highlights, of course.

So, the status didn't look so bright prior to an away game in Braga, who were one of the finalists of the very same competition last year. I thought a three goal deficit will suffice and hoping that anything more than that will not be the case this time around. When I saw the team sheets, the only thing that made me happy Tanju's fielding instead of Ekrem in the back line. Moreover, when you look at the squad, it seemed more like a Denizliesque one rather than a Schuster style. Maybe it was the only option to get something out of this game, just like Trabzonspor away game in the first half of the season. After the first 15 minutes, Braga seemed to attack more an our only hope was Q7 whom happened to gain about 15-20 pounds extra in the personal winter break that he took in Portugal. However, a miracle happened and the referee reduced our opponents with a red card that have turned all the odds on the table. Five minutes later, Sivok's header from the corner spot -which is becoming a classic this year-, brought in the belief of success to the whole squad and the supporters all around the world.

10 men Braga fought well into the second half, but our boys used an opportunity really good when Fernandes paved the way for Simao to score and maybe even secure the round in favor of Beşiktaş. Surely, a third or maybe a fourth goal should have been pursued, however when you have a defensive minded coach you can't ask for more.

In the end, "the Portuguese among us" proved themselves even though there's still a second leg for this tie next Thursday, on the 23rd. Now, all heads are turned to the Gençlerbirliği game in which there's a tab to be picked up from the first half...

So I guess it's kind of early to BRAG About it, and we shall still keep our fingers crossed; since there's always an "if" when it's Beşiktaş we're talking about...