Last night Galatasaray played their first Champions League match in 2013 against Bundesliga side Schalke 04 which ended 1-1 at the Türk Telekom Arena.
The home side went ahead in the twelfth minute, Selçuk played a through ball to Burak Yılmaz who then skillfully beat the Schalke defense and struck the ball past Schalke keeper Timo Hildebrand. Burak has now scored seven goals in the competition and is level with Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo who also tops the goal scoring table in this season's competition.
Hamit could have made it two nil to the Lions, however his effort hit the woodwork, one interesting stat from last night that was revealed is that Galatasaray has hit the bar more times than any other team in the tournament (on seven ocassions).
The Istanbul side had a few more decent chances, however, the midfield was exploited by the German side, which left Schalke to dominate on both flanks on the pitch with the likes of Brazilian winger Michel Bastos causing the Lions all sorts of problems.
Die Königsblauen (The Royal Blues) scored on the stroke of half time, Dany's miscontrol of the ball lead Klaas-Jan Huntelaar to pass the ball to Jefferson Farfán who was free to run past Reira and Semih who then set up Jermaine Jones who slotted the ball past Muslera to make it 1-1.
In the second half Terim made some changes, new signing Wesley Sneijder was replaced with Nordin Amrabat as well as Eboué coming on for Altıntop. However, these changes didn't really improve the Lion's second half performance.
The Gelsenkirchen side dominated on the wings and in the centre of the park which again caused problems for the home side, Galatasaray were very lucky to escape with a draw. One thing that was on every fan's lips after the game was how can Terim incorporate the new signings into the starting eleven. Maybe Terim will adopt some kind of rotational system, time will only tell and the up and coming Süper Lig games will be one way of testing the water.
Both sides meet again next month at the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen; it will be interesting to see if Schalke can play well again as they have shown great form in the competition, however they have been poor domestically in recent weeks having lost to bottom side Greuther Fürth and also being thumped four nil against Bavarian giants Bayern Munich.
The Lions seem to play better away in the competition, having previously beating CFR Cluj and Braga in the previous round of the Champions League. Hopefully this will be the case when the Istanbul club travel to Germany next month.
GALATASARAY: Muslera, Sabri (Bulut 84 mins), Semih, Dany, Riera, Hamit (Eboue 66 mins), Selçuk, Melo, Sneijder (Amrabat 46 mins), Burak, Drogba
No comments:
Post a Comment