Travel Mediterranean

For those that are not familiar with football (soccer) in Turkey the Kings of the sport there is Fenerbahce Spor Klubu (Sports Club).
In the last few days they have been getting lot’s of attention since beating the London football club Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League. Champions League is basically a tournament with all the top teams of each domestic league battling to find the top team in Europe.

Fenerbahce has just beat the top rated football club in the world, and this is a huge deal in Turkey. Football is the national sport of choice, take a look at these celebrations!

With Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Chelsea at the Sukru Saracoglu in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals, Fenerbahce may be on the brink of achieving European Soccer glory. A place in the last four of Europe’s premier club competition would constitute a remarkable achievement for a team which last season failed even to survive the qualifying stages.

Meanwhile, Fenerbahce also known as the “Yellow Canaries” took a big step towards defending their domestic crown last weekend with a 2-1 win at fourth-placed Besiktas, with Brazilian playmaker and captain Alex de Souza scoring both goals for the visitors.

That result kept them two points clear of Galatasaray with six games left — though with a trip to their archrivals still to come at the end of April the title race is far from decided.

Coached by the legendary Brazilian Zico, it has been in the Champions League that Fenerbahce have impressed this season, beating Inter Milan, PSV Eindhoven and CSKA Moscow en route to the knockout stages and then eliminating Sevilla on penalties in the last 16 after a thrilling two-legged tie finished 5-5 on aggregate.

On Wednesday, Chelsea became the latest side to discover just how hard Fenerbahce are to beat at home. Despite dominating the first half and going ahead through an own goal by Fener’s Brazilian forward Deivid, the London side were left stunned by two second half strikes; the first from London-born Kazim Kazim — formerly Colin Kazim Richards of Bury, Brighton and Sheffield United — and the second a thumping 30-meter drive from Deivid that made amends with interest for his earlier error.

The Turkish side seem very confident, and if they beat Chelsea, they could go all the way. This Cinderella story is just getting started.

“From the beginning, our ultimate goal has always been the final,” he said. “At the moment, all we are thinking about is the game in London and getting to the semifinal, but we are getting there step by step and we want to be in (the final in) Moscow.” Said Zico.

Now let’s see what they can do next week in London.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS