Super Final kicks off with Eagles hosting Lions at İnönü
13 April 2012 / OKAN UDO BASSEY , İSTANBUL
Turkish football is facing a brand-new experience wherein the team that finishes first at the end of the regular season in the Spor Toto Super League does not automatically win the championship, but instead the champion will be determined after the Super Final -- the championship playoff among the top four teams.
The much-talked-about Super Final kicks off on Saturday evening with Beşiktaş hosting Galatasaray in what is expected to be a thrilling rough-and-tumble İstanbul derby at Fiyapı İnönü Stadium.
Galatasaray finished first at the end of the regular season with 77 points from 34 outings, while Beşiktaş was a distant fourth with 55. And the fact that the total points garnered by each team during the regular season are divided into two for the Super Final means Galatasaray starts with 39 points and Beşiktaş with 28.
Looking at the enormous point gap, it appears as if the two teams belong to different galaxies in the football universe. But that may not be the case.
Accumulated woes
The simple reason is that Beşiktaş has been all over the place in 2011-12, battling a multitude of problems off and on the pitch, which meant they could not concentrate on football. The team was incriminated in the ongoing match-fixing scandal that saw young coach Tayfur Havutçu and two top officials sent to Metris Prison in İstanbul. The club is neck-deep in debt, and players were not paid for several months.
A hungry man is an angry man, they say. With players performing with empty stomachs, indiscipline was the order of the day, and the authority of interim Portuguese coach Carlos Carvalhal was openly questioned.
Furthermore, former Chairman Yıldırım Demirören became the new Turkish Football Federation (TFF) president, leaving a vacuum in the club for several weeks and deepening the crisis.
All of this reflected adversely on the teams overall performance, and Beşiktaş lost match after match.
Things have recently changed for the better with Havutçu released from jail, Fikret Orman elected the new chairman of the club, Carvalhal returning to his native country and Havutçu brought back to the helm again. But it will take more time for the debt and payment problems to be tackled.
Beşiktaş, or the Black Eagles, put all of its eggs in one basket and invested only in Portuguese players. And apart from all-rounder Manuel Fernandes, the rest performed well below par. Injury-prone crowd-pleaser Ricardo Quaresma spent more time at the infirmary than on the pitch, and the same applied to young striker Bebe. And 2011-12 has also been a horrendous experience for striker Hugo Almeida and winger Simao Sabrosa.
Under the tutelage of Havutçu, the Eagles aim to finish at least second in the Super Final -- if winning the championship looks like mission impossible -- and make the UEFA Champions League qualifiers next season. But it is a tough order, indeed, because too many matches were lost and too many points dropped during the regular season.
But the coach remains optimistic. The battle is not lost or won yet. And everyone will see what Beşiktaş is capable of doing when the playoff [Super Final] starts, Havutçu has said.
The Lions, as Galatasaray is called in football circles, were the best in the regular season. They scored the most goals, conceded the fewest and had the most points. Fatih Terims men won the honorific title of winter champion at the halfway point in December and were top at the end of the regular season.
The Lions start the Super Final with a five-point advantage over closest rival Fenerbahçe, which hosts Trabzonspor on Sunday. This difference is huge considering that only 18 points are at stake in the Super Final.
These are tough matches, Terim has said. We have an advantage over the rest because of our performance during the regular season. We will continue with the same zeal in the Super Final and try to maintain our advantage to the very end, he added.
Terim will be missing lefty Emre Çolak, who saw red in the away Super League finale against relegated Manisaspor last Sunday.
The feud between Spain winger Albert Riera and Brazilian midfielder Felipe Melo, who traded punches last week, has been resolved. The two pugilists have been pardoned by Terim, and Riera is expected to fill the void created by Emres absence, while Melo and Selçuk İnan will be doing all the monkey work at midfield. On-form Sweden striker Johan Elman, who has fully recovered from injury, will certainly be a menace to the Beşiktaş defense.
Beşiktaş-Galatasaray games are never as dangerous as the mother of all derbies between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. But these matches are never dull affairs, and the Beşiktaş fans at İnönü will definitely get their moneys worth since Galatasaray fans wont be there in accordance with a ruling by the TFF that bars away fans this season from matches involving the Big Four.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m., and the referee will be Hüseyin Göçek.
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