[Zico 10]

Have to win this home leg at least or I'll end up throwing someone infront of a moving train, or off of a train that's moving even faster. I have so many Chelsea sympathisers and EPL fanatics around me, there can be no other way :fero:

 

[Zico 10]

Not too worried about Deivid to be honest, as influential as he's been I get the feeling if he's suspended a London return for Colin Kazim-Richards could be a really good thing

Kezman likewise, but Lugano better calm the hell down. He's the only player we have capable of carrying Drogba around in his back pocket. If he gets the first yellow, I'd recommend he waits until the 92nd minute to take Drogba out for the second leg . A second yellow would mean he still only gets one match suspension, just that he'll be on yellow card row again the next time he plays.

This match means so much more to us than it does to them, if we can carry that added passion onto the pitch we can pull an upset here.

We want to see Chelsea kebab. Stick them on a skewer and grill them slowly.

For a second there I was contemplating a vicious reply, then I realised you're a Gooner . . and then I realised I didn't read the post properly at all

 

[Zico 10]

You guys sounded a lot more confident and pumped up in the Sevilla thread from what I remember. Do you guys have doubts? Nothing is Impossible...

I'm not pessimistic, but I'm not as confident as I was against Sevilla either.

The first reason is simple, Sevilla isn't a top class European side, just a very good one. Chelsea is, no matter what anyway says about their money or their Avram, they've been here at this stage for years on end.

The next reason is a little more tactical. Sevilla plays fast football which is a contrast to our preferred slower dictative style. We don't like teams who run at us that hard, but equally they don't like teams who dictate the game like we did against them. One team was going to run over the other, and when they're good enough, the team who likes to control the tempo usually comes out on top (Arsenal v Milan an exclusion, but it could be argued that Arsenal is better than Milan in terms of quality. Pirlo is quality but Milan were overly reliant on him, Wenger knew it and Ancelotti didn't).

With Chelsea, unfortunately I don't the match-up in terms of style. Chelsea isn't a team that will open up in defence, if they need to they'll defend tight for 180 (+30) minutes. Even if we dominate the midfield, that doesn't phase them, it makes little difference because they don't get impatient.

Put it this way, even though it's almost impossible to get the better of the Arsenal or Barcelona midfield, if we were against one of them and we did we could pull off the right result. Against Chelsea, we could end up dominating the match just how we want to and still losing, such is the football they play.

And dominating the match how we want to and losing has been a tradition at Fenerbahce until this season

 

[Zico 10]

Cheers FootyFan

Don't think I'll be able to sleep, ****ing been downing drink after drink in an attempt to get that short lived high that alcohol so lovingly gives me, I can't even get that. I'm glad I'm not into cocaine too much, I'd be paranoid in the corner of my room with a knife in my hand trying to kill the evil Chelsea invaders

No seriously, I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight, and I have a busy day ahead of me too

 

[Zico 10]

You know when you can't sleep and you keep watching those infomercials and thinking "wow that's cool, I should buy that" ?

I want to buy Brooke Burke right now, but they aren't putting up the phone number :fero:

 

[Zico 10]

We started the opening exchanges scared of the occasion and scared of our opponents, we surrendered the game to Chelsea and let them stroke the ball around how they wanted. It was looking suicidal and we can thank our lucky stars it was only 1-0. We went into every challenge half heartedly and lost every loose ball in the midfield, it was terrible.

The latter stages of the half, Chelsea sat back a little more and allowed us to come at them. They won't know it, but this was the moment the match changed, because it brought a belief to our players that they can pin Chelsea back if they want to. All of a sudden we started to win tackles in midfield and stroke the ball around decently, and in the second half we came out even better.

We left them a few opportunities to get forward, but in general we dominated the second half completely, and although we didn't find many chances we scored two fantastic goals. That's what you need to do against a team who can defend as well as Chelsea, you don't get many chances so you have to put them away.

Another famous victory which now makes it Anderlecht, Inter, PSV, CSKA & Chelsea this season at Kadikoy. We've left ourselves with every chance to progress to the semi-finals, but we must do our homework before the return leg because it's only a very slight advantage we hold.

 

[Zico 10]

Congrats guys.. Btw was it Aurelio with the assist to Colin Kazim? The always delightful commenting duo never even mentioned the one with this fantastic pass..

Yes it was Aurelio.

I put it on mute after 5 minutes of listening to those ****ers. They're a prime example of why commentary is such a key part of selling football to a TV audience, how commentators can make a game better or worse than it is. Another example is the EPL coverage on (I think) NTV :yuck:

 

[Zico 10]

For those wondering about coefficients, we've momentarily overtaken Scotland into 10th place again. Unfortunetly Rangers only needs to snatch one draw in either of their matches.

Country: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/crank2008.html

Club: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method3/trank2008.html

I watched Zico's press conference, he said early on we gave far too much space and freedom to Chelsea and that he doesn't think many people watching would've believed it was possible to turn the match around. He added that it's not right to pick one hero from the match, that it's a group effort from the club directors to the players and fans.

He finished by saying it's possible that because he experienced many big occasions as a footballer, he can better explain the emotions of the match to his players to get what he wants out of them, that he can communicate better with them because he does so through experience.

He wasn't praising himself, just mentioning it as a possibility for why this team manages to win like this

 

[Zico 10]

Having played in, and lost, two of the most famous matches in World Cup history, I feel he has every right to say what he did

Copa Libertadores, Copa America, Serie A, Toyota Cup as well, and be mindful that matches really meant a lot more back then, you'd rarely see derby matches pass by so effortlessly and stale as they do now. Everyone always has other priorities now, always looking to conserve something for the next match.

Look at Chelsea, they thought they were home free and surely started contemplating their EPL title aspirations. We may well make the same mistake against Kayseri dreaming of the return leg against Chelsea!

 

[Zico 10]

....and leave it to the Sun to come up with a headlines like this! :howler:

AVRAM GRANT tasted Champions League defeat for the first time last night — and it was inflicted by the star of Deivid.

Turk that, Avram!

I feel sorry for the effort they put into those headlines, you wonder how much good they could do for society if they used that effort to do something like, I don't know, grow tomatoes.

 

[Zico 10]

Unfortunately not, I just really, really feel like a çoban salatası right now :howler:

 

[Zico 10]

****!

They're showing the second leg live on TV here, I can't believe this shit. I'll have to find an open bar at 4.30am that's broadcasting the game and watch it there.

Whenever they show Fenerbahce on Australian TV we lose, badly;
Inter 3 - 0 Fener
Milan 3 - 1 Fener
Fener 0 - 4 Milan
Man Utd 6 - 2 Fener
etc

I have to try and break the curse, so if I can't find a bar I guess I can ignore the TV and stick to Sopcast? :howler:

 

[Zico 10]

maybe we should go on and lable grant as an alien who could try out for one of the supplementary roles in the upcoming star trek movie?

As for warebee, his puzzle posts only ever show hint to wanting BJK to succeed, and that's only remote amongst the constant bashing there too. I just think he should be a little braver and be more direct to his point, and out with the team we all know he supports (or at least sympathises for) rather than his constant "I like all Turkish teams", which would probably be better off as "I hate . . "

 

[Zico 10]

P.S - The only half retired gardener I know is Jamie Durie,

http://www.jamiedurie.com/

 

[Zico 10]

Not in a position to be able to watch the clip, so can't clarify it's a direct link. But watching the Roma v Man Utd game had me realise something similar to what I think you just said about the whistling.

The Roma fans were whistling Man Utd's players on the ball from the start of the game, and Gary Bloom who's a commentator I rate highly, started going on about how the fans are fed already with the lack of adventure in both teams and they're letting their protests be known.

What they were doing was whistling Man Utd, and then stopping when Roma got the ball, just like our fans do. Infact they might've picked it up from us, we left quite an impression on the Italian journalists after the first Inter game

But anyway, he was saying they were criticising the teams for not being more open and attacking, and when they went quiet because Roma had the ball he was going on about how Man Utd have already silenced the home crowd! "Bill Shankly famously once said that if you can silence an away crowd in the first 20 minutes, you've got every chance of winning".

P.S - I'll have to try and get the half-time/full-time comments from the analysts on Australian TV. What they do is watch both games at the same time and make a few comments about the one not being broadcast. There's a guy named Craig Foster who is always honest and direct, and always has nice things to say about us.

 

[Zico 10]

You do know our teams have spots for 8 foreigners, and the only team with an ALEX or a CARLOS is Fenerbahce?

It's extremely naive to think teams in Turkey would make use of a lifting of the limit. How many teams are using their foreign quota well now apart from Fenerbahce? Galatsaray isn't, Besiktas isn't, and most definitely the Anadolu teams aren't either.

It's a very Fener-centric debate, it's the only club that can be trusted without a limit. Not trusted to care about the development of Turkish players, but that they'll import quality foreigners. The rest of the team's can't bring in 8 quality players, and couldn't even handle 6.

 

[Zico 10]

There's a lot of things that need to change before we consider lifting the limit, and those who think that lifting the limit will magically solve these issues are usually biased Fenerbahce fans.

First and foremost, look at the current line-up of foreigners in the league, these are the players that were signed with less freedom because the club's are under more pressure to make the right decisions when they have a limit to stay within.

Here's the list, minus Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Besiktas. It's scary stuff, so you might want to go take a piss and prepare yourself:

Ankaragucu: Andres Lamas, Andre Silva, Bebbe, Kirita, Paulauskas, Kaba Diawara, Augustine, Jiri Masek, Ibrahim Said, Jaba
Ankaraspor: Fredrik Risp, Tita, de Nigris, Hamilton, Senecky, Neca
Bursaspor: Vandelannoite, Mbesuma, Renny Vicente Vega, Romaschenko, Ronald Gutierrez, Ysrael Zúñiga, Herve Tum
Caykur Rizespor: David González Giraldo, Anderson, Nascimento Ribeiro, Gustavo Victoria, Igor Gal, Leandro Chavez Rodrigues, Dennis de Crues, Carlos Rodriguez
Denizlispor: Carlos Alberto, Tomas Abraham, Julio Cesar, Roman Kratochvil, Souleymanou Hamidou, Karel Kroupa
Gaziantepspor: Zurita, Afanou, Deumi, Neira, Ivan, Sedlak, Beto, Matumona
Genclerbirligi OFTAS: Jevtic, Tozo, Petkovic, Sandro, Boadu, Yakubu
Genclerbirligi: Traore, Kahe, El Saka, Isaac Promise, Adamu Mohammed, Nicolas Peric, Daniel Addo
Konyaspor: Washington, Kaue, Ze Gomes, Damir Kahriman, Tehoue, Mihajlov, Cedric Sabin
Kayserispor: Juan Pablo, Iglesias, Toledo, Cangele, Saidou, Ivankov
Kasimpasa: Andre Moritz, Ely Cisse, Desire Yousef, Khalid Sinouh, Fransergio, Jens Berthel Askou, Edin Ademovic
Istanbul B.B. : Hasagic, Tjikuzu, Adriano, Marcus Viniscus
Manisaspor: Borbiconi, Rafael, Kalabane, Dalgaard, Allyson, Martinez (GK), Tiago Targino
Sivasspor: Diallo, Sylla, Okorowanta, Cvetkov, Balili, Petkovic
Trabzonspor: Moawad, Jabi

So divide the quality on that list by about 2, and then double the number of names on it, and that's what you'll have as the line-up of foreigners in the unrestricted Turkcell Superlig.

If we can assure that good quality players, unlike most of that above list, are going to come into the league then I don't mind a lifting of the foreign limit. But there's no way to govern that, who can label a player of good quality and how?

You can't limit it to internationals only, because look at the list above, one of the good players on there is Cangele - an Argentine without a hope in hell of playing for them. Matias Delgado has very little chance of playing for Argentina, Aurelio had absolutely no hope of playing for Brazil, but these guys are all good foreigners in this league.

Another method is to prevent slave labour rates by restricting a minimum salary rate for foreigners, It protects them and forces clubs to think about their investment or go bankrupt for being overzealous on the transfer market. $200,000/yr translates to 10 foreigners costing at the very least $2m/yr, plus transfer fees. It's not a bad system but also has it's flaws too.

There's a lot more to consider than "the pool of talented foreigners is better than the pool of talented Turks, therefore it's a good idea". It's a short sighted and in the case of a Fenerli, greedy train of thought.

 

[Zico 10]

Explain something to me here, how did you come to the conclusion that I am a biased Fenerbahce fan? Would you even have known that I was a Fenerbahce fan if it didn't say so in my profile? Adding biased there.. just sounds so much cooler, right?

I know you're biased, I do remember you from here and Antu in past. It also takes someone fairly biased to claim it was a definite penalty last night, but that's another matter.

Anyway, on the contrary I think you're the one who is biased here. You, as well as a lot of other Turks, are so afraid to try something new. Wouldn't that be considered biased? I mean, the current set-up we have is obviously not working. And we know just how long backwards would Turkish football go if the limit was to be increased.

Why am I biased, because I said I'm not against lifting the limit if it's done properly? I mean right now I'm the one with a reasonably open mind about it, while your position is absolutely 100% for one cause.

And what exactly isn't working right now, Fenerbahce is having the best season of a Turkish club in the CL, and the national team is going to Euro. On top of that, the league is the most competitive it's been in years and our players playing abroad are all doing very well.

Will lifting the limit make all that better or worse, no one can say for sure. But to say things aren't working isn't too wise considering we're having one of our better years in almost all facets of football.

As much as I can tell, the more the Federation has decreased the limit, the more successful Turkish football has become. The better quality we see on the pitch. If you ignore this fact, you are biased.

The limit has more or less been at the same levels in the post-Bosman era, which I'm sure covers all of the time you've been following Turkish football.

Why not push it even further? Oh, yeah. To preserve the Turkish nationalistic ideas, right? .. whatever happened to equal human rights :undecide:

Now I'm beginning to doubt you read my post, because if you did you'd have noticed I'm against bringing in foreigners to waste their careers and pay them a pittance in the process. If that's not promoting human rights, I don't know what is.

Why are you so fast jumping on the gun and exploiting the most bizzare and negative effect lifting the limit could possibly have? The lone fact that Turks wouldn't have reserved spots would make the Turkish players better. This is the most simple logic, without any positive or negative assumptions.

What's the most bizarre negative effect I'm exploiting? All I've said is that the foreigners in the league right now are of low quality, and if we were able to bring in more then it's clear that they'd also be . . low quality.

Turks, as you are Seytan, would even have the will to fight even harder to earn that spot in the team simply because 'this is Turkiye, and I will have to be in that team'.

The quality of foreigners right now as it is, is very low. The standard of Turkish players at Anatolian clubs at the moment is higher than that of foreign players, and that wouldn't change if they were able to bring in more players. Quantity doesn't bring quality.

Where would all the Turkish players dissapear if it happened the way you predict, Seytan? I would predict, but not even necessarely guarantee that even Fenerbahce would not have all foreign players. We're not Arsenal. You have to realize though, if the top 3 clubs let the Turks loose because they were replaced by foreigners -- the anadolu teams would not go shopping outside of the borders for decent players because they could get them in Turkey! -- as the top 3/4 would not feel the necessity to transfer all the promising young Turkish players as they are now.

And I'm not also saying this would solve all of the problems that Turkish Football has at the moment, but it would definitely be a step towards the right direction.

You're moving quickly onto an ideal situation where foreigners being brought in will be quality. Galatasaray, Besiktas and Trabzonspor can't even find the right foreigners, I repeat, right now there is only one club that can be trusted to bring in good quality foreign talent and that's Fenerbahce.

Lifting said limit to benefit this one club then becomes inconsiderate and . . biased.

 

[Zico 10]

I'll end this here, because it's crystal clear that while I have thoughts both pro and con the foreign limit, you don't have the ability to think rationally about the other side of the argument.

I'll reply to this part only;

How the hell do you know how long I've been following the Turkish football? You're short-sighted assumptions are beginning to piss me off. If you really want to know, I've been following Turkish football for about 14 years! Since 94.

Because you're age is listed in your profile, you'd have been 9 or 10 years old when the Bosman case was concluded. "Relax", go pop some of those eccies you keep talking about.

 

[Zico 10]

The phrase is derived from ecstasy pills, hence "eccies". It was pretty much the marketing phrase for the pill, and yes the pill came before the phrase.

Consider it a history lesson, not an insult.