Official Football Thread

Süper Lig ends with Beşiktaş as the champions.

The more interesting story is the teams that qualified for the Europa League.
  • Torku Konyaspor: Ended 3rd. Konya is one of the strongest AKP strongholds -%75 in the last election-, the largest stadium outside of Istanbul was built recently for them, they receive a huge budget due to their sponsor -Torku-, which has strong ties with AKP. Prime Minister Davutoğlu, who has recently been forced to resign by Erdoğan, is from Konya. During a national team match in Konya in 2015, the minute of silence held for the victims of the ISIS attack in Ankara which targeted mostly left wing groups was interrupted with hisses and boos.
  • Istanbul Başakşehir: Formerly Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor, which stands for "Istanbul Municipality Sportsclub" Transferred in 2014 into Başakşehir, which was made a seperate district in 2008 by AKP and enjoyed a massive boost in relevancy after AKP affiliated businessmen -mainly in the field of building- invested in the district. A new stadium was built for the team and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, along with his son and some of his ministers, played football in its launch. During a national team match against Greece in their stadium, the fans booed the Greek national anthem.
  • Osmanlıspor: Probably the most interesting one out of all. Formerly Ankara Büyükşehir Belediyespor, which stands for "Ankara Municipality Sportsclub". Controlled mainly by Melih Gökçek, who has been the mayor of Ankara for 25 years and is a member of AKP, and his son. Gökçek is well known for his corruption, even in AKP circles and his son is some sort of a quasi-mafia leader, if you will. The club's name was changed in 2014 into Osmanlıspor, which as you can probably tell, stands for "Ottoman Sportsclub". The janissary band plays in their games, the "fans" -who are actually just a random municipality workers who get paid to watch games- call themselves "the Janissaries". Their most popular chant is "Ya Allah, bismillah, Allahuakbar."
Crazy when everything, and literally everything is ruined, right? Have fun, teams who pick these guys in the draw.
 
I have no idea who he is.

Today is Cup Final day, starting with the Scottish Cup Final between Rangers and Hibernian. One each at half time. This is my favourite day in the football calendar, along with the Boxing Day fixtures in England and Scotland.
 
Memphis Depay and his utterly crap season with United:

Premier League: 29 matches, 2 goals, 1 assist
Champions League (& pre-round): 8 matches, 3 goals, 2 assists
Europa League: 3 matches, 2 goals, 1 assist
FA Cup: 3 matches, 0 goals, 1 assist
League Cup: 2 matches, 0 goals, 1 assist
Total: 45 matches, 7 goals, 6 assists


Let's go back in time: 1990. FA Cup Final: Chrystal Palace - Man United! 3-3 and 0-1.
864x486.jpg

Geoff Thomas (Crystal Palace) & Bryan Robson (Man U).

2016: Revenge? Or finally a prize for Van Gaal? Both are unexpected outcomes, so it's always an interesting result.
 
Last edited:
Forostar said:
Both are unexpected outcomes, so it's always an interesting result.
Click to expand...

How can both be unexpected?

Btw, on my last trip to Manchester, the MUSCSB (Man Utd supporters club, Scandinavian branch) held an event at Old Trafford where Lee Martin, who scored the winning goal in the replay, told about the final from his perspective. Pretty cool to hear. Right before scoring the goal, he had misunderstood an order from the assistant manager, telling him to pass the ball forward and stay in defense. Instead, Martin continued his run forward and ended up scoring the only goal of the match :D
 
Hibernian just beat Rangers 3-2 with an injury time header to win the club's first Scottish Cup since 1902! They took the lead early on and were all over Rangers before Rangers equalized and then took the lead in the second half. Hibs equalized on 80 minutes shortly after I said that they wouldn't equalize. Great match. The FA Cup Final will not be this exciting.

After the final whistle the Hibs fans started streaming onto the pitch which I think is fine, but there's fans on the goalposts which will get the club into a bit of trouble. The police have even taken some horses onto the pitch, which is pretty cool.
 
Three years since last title. Come on ...

I mean, it's a cup tournament. It can hardly be a surprise that one of the big clubs win it, despite not living up to the high expectations in general.
 
Yeah United winning the FA Cup is hardly a surprise. Arsenal didn't win anything for 10 years and when they won the FA Cup nobody was that surprised.
 
5 minutes extra time.... exciting!

edit:
what a waste!!! He should have passed it, and Palace would have made the winning goal. :facepalm:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top