Manchester

I am very excited since we shall play a match in Europe for the first time after many years.  It is easy to say, the Champions League, i.e the league of our mothers. In our last participation in the champions league, we had said farewell  to the league by being eliminated by Steau Bucharest in the season 2008-2009. There is nothing to be sad  about.;As the sports commentator Bilgin Gökberk has said, you have to be the coach of Milano before being dismisses from there. This means that first you have to participate in the champions league in order to be eliminated from it.  

Lots which have been waited with excitement were drawnt and we were included in the quadripartite group together with Manchester United (alias Manu) Cluj and Braga. This meant that you will read my articles about Cluj (Romania) and Braga (Portugal). We had already gone to Romania for the matches with Steau Bucharest and Dinamo Bucharest. Male fans  have a special interest in countries like Romania besides Ukraine and Estonia, I don’t know why.    

I had went to Lesabon for he match in which we defeated Benfica 2-0. Greetings to Ümit Ozat because we had defeated Benfica in Benfica.

Manchester United is one of the indispensable teams of the Champions League. Is it possible to think otherwise? Because the team is  coached by Sir Alexander Ferguson for 23 years. Recently he took the field for the 1000. Leagur match in front of his team. Even in Turkey, which tries to become a football country, a coach was deemed to be successful for having coached a club team for a period of 5 years and  was appointed as the coach of the national team. This shows that we have a long distance to go ahead.

We slowly departed  early in the morning on September 18, Wednesday for the flight at 14:45. Team members come altogether by bus  to the away matches  and they wear one example uniforms. Previously people wore suits while going to matches in Europe and I think that was more beautiful. Team members  go to European matches wearing sportswear. It seems that Sarar does spear no expenses anymore. 

We understood that we had missed the excitement in Europe. For that reason I saw that many new faces have filled our giant  Boeing 777 airplane besides those with whom I was already familiar with. 

The flight lasted 4 hours but it was very comfortable. The feeling of excitement with the match was beginning to take hold of all of us when we landed in Manchester.  To be true, my luck which you will remember from my previous articles was not with me this time. We, the miserables who are citizens of the European Union waited on the long queu while those among us who had foreign passports easily passed through the passport queu on which we waited for one hour.

When we finally got rid of the polite English torture and threw ourselves into the bus, I noticed that I had forgotten to take my baggage with me.

When a friend of mine asked me where my baggage was, I tried to give a pretext for my dazedness by saying that I generally don’t  take any baggage or didn’t take any baggage  this time for it was a one-day trip but actually I had forgotten to take it with me. After spending half an hour to seek the baggage,  we could reach the icecold streets of Manchester only at about 17:00. Temperature was approximately 10 C. In other words it was icecold. I decided to go to the training of the team since there was nothing to do in this boirng english city. We went to the training, which took place at 19:00 in the evening both to see Old Trafford stadium and  perceive the atmosphere of the team. The training which was closed to fans and open to the press for only 10 minutes lasted approximately 30 minutes but we couldn’t stay there longer any way even if it lasted longer since the weather was very cold.  

Training passed very cheerfully possibly because we had said “let the atmosphere of the team be good  however bad the weather might be”

From my previous experiences I already knew that the pre-match training could give a quite good idea about the match that would take place the next day. I am sure this time again, the team has a complete self confidence I can’t know whether we shall defeat or shall  be defeated but we shall struggle in this match very hardly!

Summer heat in Antalya 3 days ago, a sweet breeze at the endf of summer in İstanbul and winter here.  My body is naturally dead tired. I found my self laid down at full length on the bed at 10:00 while I had wanted to go out after taking a rest after coming from the training. The next day I woke up early and went downstairs  for breakfast but I noticed that I had forgotten my key inside the room. I felt at odds with my friends, who asked me whether I was in love, because of their failure to understand my love for Galatasaray. Never mind.

Three was just a feast of yellow and red in the city during the match day. Fans of Galatasaray who had came from various cities of Turkey and Europe had filled the streets.

Matches of the champion league which we are used to begin at 21:45 in Turkey begins at 19:45 in England because of the difference of time. For that reason I came early to Old Trafford stadium which is not as beautiful our stadium but is an unbelievably good organized one.

Our fans were unbelievable. They never stopped shouting throughout 90 minutes beginning from the pre-match hours. Even in Istanbul the fans pauses for a while after giving away a goal and then they continue supporting their team.This time we really didn’t shut up even for one minute. It was wonderful to sing the march titled “Dağ başını duman almış” which gives us a great excitation while singing it especially in the matches in the European tournaments.

We lost the match 1-0 but I think that we struggled very good. We played with our heads hold high in a manner worth of Galatasaray and we have led those who had missed us in Europe, watch a beautiful football. What is most important is that the  team must always struggle in this way and it is not important for us whether they defeat or are defeated.

At the end of the match we went to the airport by buses and gat on the airplane for returning to our warm and beautiful country. Our airplane which departed at 02:30 Turkish time landed in İstanbul after a flight of 3, 5 hours. I, who can normally sleep in the airplane, felt very tired  when I got off the airplane because I couldn’t sleep all along the flight and the idea of taking photographs of the scenes inside the airplane didn’t come to my mind since the spirit of the correspondent inside me which was already not quite strong, has also faller asleep.

I finally obtained the team uniform, which was promised to me and I had mentioned in my previous article on Antalya. The uniform of Selçuk İnan, who was the star of the last year and a monument of stability and won the favour of the fans without exception with his behavior  both inside and outside the football pitch has proved to be worth of having the honour of being placed near the uniforms of Arda, Baros and Hasan Şaş. I hope that Selçuk obtains captain’s armband that he deserved since last year as soon as possible.