/r/Soccer Condensed: Week 1

Layendecker killing you softly frozen-creekTorres22 BenderTime Eispeis Timelines

September 16, 2011

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Contents

1 English Premier League Condensed 3

2 English Lowe Leagues Condensed 5

3 German Bundesliga 1 Condensed 7

4 French Ligue 1 Condensed 9

5 Danish Superliga Condensed 11

6 Turkish Super Lig Condensed 13

7 Norwegian League Quick Summery 17

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1 English Premier League Condensed

Prepared By Layendecker

Is the EPL a 2 horse race for the title? Seeing the results from thepast few weeks you would be forgiven for thinking so; scholars of the gamehowever will point to last season where Chelsea were early season ’locks’;winning their first 5 games, scoring 21 and only conceding 1. We all knowwhat happened there.These results I alluded to this season are coming fromthe 2 Manchester Teams:

Bolton 0-5 Man UtdA second hat-trick in two from Rooney, and 2 from Hernandez on his firstouting of the season. This brings into serious question the future of Dimi-tar Berbatov, with Chicharito firing on all cylinders and Welbeck performingwell we may see the Bulgarian being forced to find another club at Xmas justto get a game. Contrary to some pre match reports David De Gea startedin goal and silenced some of his critics by making several good saves. Injurynews from this game is that Man Utd defender Tom Cleverly looks to be outfor a month after a hard tackle from Kevin Davis.

Man City 3-0 WolvesMan City played a hard working Wigan off the pitch with Sergio Agueronetting 3. The downside of the performance was a penalty missed by thetroubled Carlos Tevez, despite this he got stuck into the game and was aapparent in a lot of City’s movement up the pitch. To their credit Wiganpressured City and came close on several occasions, they were just unfortu-nate enough to run into a team on top form.

Sunderland 1-2 ChelseaThe result does not do justice to Chelsea’s dominance, or at least Sunder-land’s lack of. Mata starting his first game in the EPL was very impressive,it is also interesting to note Daniel Sturridge started ahead of Torres andrewarded his manager with a brilliant backheel finish to make it 2-0. Basedon early season form I would be slightly concerned if I was a Sunderland fanas they are looking lacklustre, despite finishing the game strongly.

Stoke 1-0 Liverpool

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Having scored a penalty Stoke went on to defend superbly with Showcrossin particular starring. Despite this when Liverpool did get in front of goalmistakes were made, in particular from Suarez. Liverpool fans may feel harddone by after several genuine penalty claims were turned down.

Arsenal 1-0 SwanseaLate window signing Arteta was a driving force in a first half that the Gun-ners dominated. To score though Arsenal required a freak mistake fromSwansea’s goalkeeper which allowed Arshavin to hit the ball into an opennet. Arsenals defending looked better with Mertsacker, but this is against ateam who are yet to score this season, sterner tests are to follow. Based onthis performance, Swansea will not be going down without a fight.

Everton 2-2 Aston VillaGabby Agbonlahor continued his good start to the season by netting a lateequaliser for Aston Villa against Everton. Despite not having a striker on thepitch (Cahill playing up front) Everton’s performance would have brightenedthe day of the fans protesting before the match (due lack of investment).Villa will be glad to take home a point against the run of play, especiallyafter Everton looked certain to score late on.

Wolves 0-2 TottenhamAdebayor picked up a goal on his Tottenham debut helping his side to theirfirst win of the season. Having only just stayed up last year Wolves startedthe season well and could have easily gone into the break ahead but notfor Friedel’s fine work in goal. In he second half Tottenham showed theirdominance and relented to the Londoners superior strength and quality 67minutes in. Scott Parker also made a debut for Tottenham and played well.

In Sundays fixtures WBA earned their first win against Norwich1-0 after Odemwingie’s early strike and Blackburn drew 1-1 with Ful-ham. Blackburn dispelled doubters by defending well and putting a goodamount of early pressure on.

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2 English Lowe Leagues Condensed

Prepared By Timelines

OK, for the Football League one I guess it’s best to be as concise as pos-sible and only really add those games that really shook things up, otherwisepeople would just be looking through a list of results. And just try and get afeeling of what clubs are under-achieving and over-achieving etc. The Cham-pionship haven’t played for a while, but Leagues 1 and 2 have just playedTuesday night so I can put a few of them up for you if that’s okay. I’ll tryand limit myself to about 3 or 4 depending on what’s going on. Maybe justa couple if there’s quite a straight forward one. With an overview sectionlater in the season when it matters more if I have less space.

League One

Leyton Orient 1 - 3 BournemouthThe O’s lost again this season, making this officially their worst start to aseason since 3 points for a win came in to effect. And equalling their last lowafter 8 games which was set in 1925. Looking for a culprit for their displayOrient midfielder Dean Cox was more than ready to blame the referee, how-ever this isn’t the overall view of many of the fans. They are looking at themanager, Russell Slade, and questioning his competency.And for Bournemouth this was an important win too, cutting short their 5match losing streak in the league and pointing them in the right directionagain.

Sheffield United 0 - 3 HuddersfieldA surprising result, but a good Huddersfield team left Sheffield United scratch-ing their heads. Sheffield United had their chances, but were unable to score.This will be the sort of result that will give a few wide eyed Terriers fanshopes of big things for this season to come. Blades fans will hope to take thisone on the chin. The sane ones will realise that this was a good side theycame up against, and that the goals when they came were not from periodsof total domination by the visitors. They’ll still be hopeful that their sidecan bounce back and continue their early season good form.

Stevenage 5 - 1 Sheffield Wednesday

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This is a classic case of Wednesday realising what division they’re back inonce more. It can’t be fun going away midweek anywhere and losing 5-1, butfor this to happen to them against recently non-league Stevenage will hurt.I think Wednesday will want to deny this match happened and get on withthe rest of their season.

League Two

Crawley Town 0 - 3 Swindon TownCrawley were looking so promising for the double promotion right at thestart of the season, they have the squad and the money to go there, but theirresults aren’t matching this ambition over the past few matches.As for Swindon it’s almost the exact opposite. After coming down fromLeague One last season they’ll be happy to see their new manager, Paolo DiCanio, and his team starting to pick up results.

Barnet 2 - 0 Plymouth ArgyleYet another disappointing result for the Green Army. Their money problems(putting it mildly) are coming to a head as they sit bottom of the FootballLeague with 1 point from 8. Rumblings that manager Peter Reid must go,will be tempered by the fact that their players haven’t been paid in about 3months. And as a Southend fan I know for a fact that this totally craps upthe on field displays.For Barnet though this is another result to place in the bank for their bid tosurvive and stay a league club for another season.

Burton Albion 1 - 0 Crewe AlexandriaA local derby that proves Crewe have a long way to go before they can eventhink about making up for last season’s relegation.As for Burton they’ve got an exciting striker in Calvin Zola and will be hop-ing for play-offs this season. Paul Peschisolido said of his side that they were,”Absolutely magnificent.” He’s obviously playing it cool then for now.

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3 German Bundesliga 1 Condensed

Prepared By BenderTime

Augsburg 1-4 LeverkusenThe game started with a surprising Augsburg goal with Hajime Hosogaiputting the ball into the back of Leverkusen’s net after 5 minutes. Lev-erkusen were quick to respond with a Sidney Sam goal not a minute after.Leverkusen didn’t look back after that, as Stefan Kiessling slotted one homeat the 23rd minute mark. Sam added to his tally with another goal late inthe second half, while Eren Derdiyok to finish off the scoring in a deserved4:1 victory for Leverkusen. An entertaining game with both teams havingchances on goals, with Leverkusen being the more clinical team. .

Mainz 0-4 HoffenheimHoffenheim were able to beat a sloppy looking Mainz team :0:4. Hoffenheimlooked dangerous in the first 10 minutes, but had two chances parried awayby Mainz’s keeper Heinz Mller. An error by Mainz’s centerback Niko Bungertallowed Roberto Firmino to put Hoffenheim ahead in the 16th minute. Hof-fenheim were rewarded what turned out to be an iffy penalty kick, but itdidn’t matter as Ryan Babel cooly put Hoffenheim ahead 0:2 right beforethe end of the half. Babel doubled his scoring tally with a driving run pastMainz defenders and a clinical finished. An own-goal from defender NikolceNoveski, summed up Mainz’s rather lackluster and underwhelming perfor-mance. .

Borrusia Monchengladbach 1-0 FC KaiserslauternRelegation-candidates Kaiserslautern came to Monchengladbach looking fora result after their loss against Bayern Munich. Gladbach would have noneof it and were able to keep their spot near the top of the table with a 1:0home win. Kaiserslautern were allowed few chances, including a bicycle kickthat forced Marc-Andre ter Stegen to pull of a world-class save, as they wereoutshot 22:6. Gladbach were able to gain the lead through a volley fromJuan Arango in the 58th minute. The team from northern Germany had afew clear chances to go up 2:0, but in the end were held to a deserved win atthe Borussia-Park.

FC Bayern Munich 1-0. SC Freiburg

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FC Bayern took on SC Freiburg at the Allianz Arena in scintillating formand didn’t leave any doubts about their quality, winning 7:0. Bayern kickedoff the goal-fest in on the 8th minute mark with a tap-in by Mario Gomez.It continued not two minutes later when Frank Ribery used his heel to putBayern up 2:0. Ribery would show off his class by leaving a defender in thedust to give Bayern the 3:0 lead. The Frenchman continued his work bylaying the ball off to Gomez to slot in the 4:0. Gomez got his hat-trick froma deflected ball that sailed over the Freiburg keeper. The scoring didn’t stopfor last year’s top Bundesliga goal-scorer, as a Thomas Mller-induced penaltykick put the Bavarians up 6:0. Summer-transfer Nils Peterson scored his firstBundesliga goal and finished off the scoring in the 90th minute to end theSchutzenfest in Munich. With the win, Bayern remained at the top of thetable with a +15 gold difference.

Borussia Dortmund 1-2 Hertha BerlinThe German champions were trying to keep pace with Bayern after droppingpoints against Leverkusen. But two points wasn’t the only thing they lost asMario Gotze was suspended for two games, due to a red card received againstLeverkusen. The new comers Hertha Berlin took advantage of the absence ofDortmund’s spark plug and eventually took the lead in the 49th minute in avery defensive minded game from the team from Berlin. The second goal forHertha came in the 81st minute, seemingly putting the game out of reach forthe Dortmunders. A concession goal in the 88th minute from striker RobertLewandowski wouldn’t be enough as Dortmund dropped to 11th in the table.

Werder Bremen 2-0. Hamburger SVTwo teams going in opposite directions met Saturday evening in this Nord-Derby. The two teams stayed in their respective directions as Bremen wonthe derby 2:0. Hamburg looked better than in previous games, but couldonly hold Bremen scoreless until the second half. Claudio Pizzaro scoredboth in the second half, with the second one a stunning shot from the top of

VfB Stuttgart 3-0. Hannover 96Hannover tried to stay near the top of the table, but those hopes were dashedas Stuttgart won at home, 3:0. Shinki Okazaki put Stuttgart up early in the9th minute. Both teams traded shots, with Stuttgart looking the more dom-inant team. Stuttgart had a nervous time protecting their lead until the79th minute when Zdravko Kuzmanovic gave the Schwaben a comfortable

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2:0 lead. Serdar Tasci capped off a MOTM performance with goal in the86th min to lock up with win and the three points to along with it.

1. FC Koln 1-2. FC. NurnbergKoln was looking for their first win of the season, but came up short againstthe Franconians. All the scoring came in a ten minute span in the first half.Koln gave up a penalty in the 31st min that was put in by Timmy Simons.It was deja vu five minutes later as Simons slotted the second penalty kickhome. Koln managed to get one back in the 39th min. but it was not enoughas Nrnberg protected its lead, even after having a man sent off in the secondhalf. The win pulled Nrnberg to 7th at the table, while Koln remained 15th.

Vfl Wolfsburg 2-1 Schalke 04Wolfsburg’s trainer Felix Magath saw his authoritarian threats pay off in a2:1 win against Schalke 04. Raul gave Schalke the early lead, but Wolfsburgwas able to equalize 20 minutes later. Wolfsburg didn’t get the lead until afree kick deflected off of Mario Madzukic to give him his second goal of theevening. It was a merited win for the hosts, while Schalke was careless withtheir chances and also missed a chance to keep pace with Bayern.

4 French Ligue 1 Condensed

Prepared By Frozen-Creek

AS Nancy Lorraine 0-0 AJ AuxerreAS Nancy is still looking for a win in Ligue 1 this season as they played agoalless draw with AJ Auxerre. A match rich in quality chances was leftgoalless by poor finishing and great defense by the woodwork. AJ AuxerresCisse almost scored a great goal off a corner in first-half injury time that wasdenied by the crossbar. Bakar had the best chance of the game in the 72where he blew a 1 on 1 with the keeper after controlling a ball over the topof the defense.

Montpellier 1-0 NiceMontpellier rose to the top of the French table with a 1-0 home win. Souley-mane Camara finally tucked in a left footed shot from the edge of the box

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with 15 minutes to go. Nice was unlucky not to equalize minutes later whenNice sent a header into the bar with the follow up also striking the bar

Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 BrestA home goal by the 39.8 million midfielder Javier Pastore (68) led PSG to athird straight victory against a Brest side that barely avoided relegation lastyear. The win puts PSG into an early 4th position in the table after a slowstart to the campaign.

AC Ajaccio 3-1 ValenciennesIn a match dominated by the home side after the break, Valenciennes wentup first. Danic scored a goal in the 36 to put Valenciennes ahead. Despitetheir edge in possession, AC Ajaccio still pulled ahead with three second halfgoals in 11 minutes. Sammartano scored a brace seven minutes apart beforeDalllgna sent the last ball home in the 58.

Bordeaux 0-0 Evian TGBordeauxs start to the campaign has been pretty good. They were expectinga win against the newly promoted Evian TG. In a match where both teamhad chances, it looked like Evian should and could have won it most of thematch. Bordeaux had two of the best chances though, one header hitting thecrossbar and a shot in the 72 that went just wide.

Caen 0-1 ToulouseAfter a poor first half where Caen had the majority of the chances, Toulouseturned it around in the second half. Caen couldnt get anything on target dur-ing the match, but they had many near chances in the first half. Toulousesfirst chance in the opening half came right before the break. This was carriedover to the second half where they dominated play, but still unable to score.The winner came in stoppage time off of a flicked pass to Capoue who hadhis first shot saved, but his second tap wasnt denied.

Dijon FCO 1-2 LyonIn a match mostly controlled by Lyon, Dijon played a wonderful game ofcatch up, almost catching equalizers at the end of each half. The scoringstarted out early with an own goal by Bamba giving Lyon an early lead.Dijon created their first threat out of nowhere with Hugo Lloris being caughtoff guard by Corgnet right before the break. Gomis slotted home shortly

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after the break giving Lyon their 2-1 lead. If it wasnt for a Lloris save in thefinal seconds, the home side could have drawn even again.

Sochaux 1-1 LorientLorient substitute Emeghara scored a late equalizer off a swift counter attackin a match they deserved nothing from. Sochaux dominated the chances infront of goal with an early shot off the post with a terrible follow-up. Thegoal by Butin was ruled onside but video evidence showing it couldve easilybeen ruled the opposite way. Sochaux were denied by the woodwork twotimes in the second half and also a miscontrolled a header.

St. Etienne 1-3 LilleWhat started out as a terrible start for the league champs turned into agreat victory with Eden Hazard scoring a brace. A low cross into the boxin the 7th minute turned into disaster for Rozenhal as he turned the ballinto his own net. Lilles fortunes changed when Nery got his marching ordersafter an ugly tackle. It only went up from there. Eden Hazard, the Belgianwonderkid and Ligue 1 superstar, scored a brace (55, 73). Joe Cole then didthe unthinkable and completed a wonderful dribble that turned into a crossto Obraniak who finished the goal scoring at 86. Lille dominated the matchhaving 72% possession.

Marseille 0-1 Stade RennesIn a match controlled mostly by Marseille (22(8) to 7(3) on shots), Rennesstunned Marseille with a 76 goal by the substitute Ekoko from outside thearea. Marseilles poor finishing left them goalless and winless in a year theyreplaying in the Champions League. The top three finisher last year is in therelegation zone at the moment after a poor start.

5 Danish Superliga Condensed

Prepared By Torres22

Round 8 of the Danish superliga was colored by all the new transfer sign-ings that have been made before the window closed, lots of goals, and paceyplays and top class finishes.

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Lyngby 0-1 FC CopenhagenThe reigning champions were winning on paper against a much weaker Lyn-gby team, who havent been on a stroll lately, with big losses in the last twogames. Fck dominated without the normal midfielders Thomas Kristensenand Claudemir, but the real talk of this game, was Mathias Zanka Jorgensensinjury blow mid game. The captain will be out for around 9 months.

Silkeborg 1-3 OBOB have always had difficulties when facing Silkeborg away, and this timeproved that it would be a hard day at the office for Odense. With a late stun-ner, Kaimar saag led the way against the newly Europa league contenders.But OB proved their class by working their way to victory in the second half,but if they want hope in the EL, they have to be more consistent in the league.

Aab 1-2 NordsjaellandAab was streaking until today, with results that have brought them in top 2,it wasnt confidence they lacked going to face the young and fast Nordsjael-land team. Nordsjaelland domniated the game with their pace and passing,and Wichmann scored a lucky goal for Aab, that wasnt following up the goodform from the last games.

Sonderjyske 1-3 AC HorsensSonderjydske looked forward to face the much better Horsens team on homeground. Sonderjydske is known for their home field fight, so they were eagerto prove to their fans that they could beat the Horsens players. But GilbertoMacene thought otherwise. The quick and agile brazilian netted 2 times forthe away team. But the talk of the day have to be Niels Lodbergs penaltykick.

Brondby 5-0 HB KogeDennis Rommedahl is back in Denmark, and Brondby, who aquirred thepacey wing from Olympiakos, where he was no longer wanted. Brondby nowhave a very solid midfield, with 3 buys this window; Mikkel Thygesen, Ajiloreand Rommedahl, together with the national team playmaker Michael KrohnDehli. Rommedahl and Brondby absolutely smashed an uninspirering HBKoge team,who looked stunned by the big names on Brondbys midfield.

AGF 4-2 FC Midtjylland

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AGF needed a win to get completely away from the bottom half of the Su-perliga. The newly bought, and former national player, Soren Larsen wasplaying a full game for the first time this year. And he delivered. With 3goals, he got de hviee on course again, and proved he was worth the risk,that AGF took with the signing. But Superliga topscorer Sren Berg stolethe Larsen show with this beauty.

6 Turkish Super Lig Condensed

Prepared By killing you softly

Praise the lords of football; the Turkish Super League is finally back! Af-ter a lengthy delay cause by an investigation into a wide-spread match fixingscandal, the first games of the new season were played this past weekend.

So, why should you care about the Turkish Super League? Well, thereare quite a few reasons first of all; many well-known players have been inthis league at some point in their careers. Anelka, Roberto Carlos, Hagi,Geremi, Ariel Ortega, Kevin Campbell, Quaresma, Guti, Shota Arveladzeand many others played in Turkey, either before they became big in Europe,or in their twilight years. The Turkish Super League is a fairly high-scoringleague; teams generally play attacking football, or are terrible defensively.The Turkish Super League has some extremely intense rivalries. Bursasporand Besiktas hate each other, Ankaragucu and Genclerbirligi hate each other,Fenerbahce and Galatasaray hate each other, Trabzonspor and Fenerbahcehate each other; however, we can all unite behind our common hatred ofFenerbahce. Finally, the Turkish Super League used to be a four horse raceonly Fenerbahce, Galatasaray, Besiktas and Trabzonspor really challengedfor the title (Trabzonspor have not been able to win it since 1984); how-ever, this trend has recently changed. Bursaspor became champions for thefirst time only two seasons ago, and now there are teams like Kayserispor,Gaziantep and Busraspor who are genuine contenders for the title. Essen-tially, shits pretty exciting.

At this point, I should mention that I am an avid Trabzonspor far. Iwas born in Trabzon and have been following this team for as long as I can

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remember. Even though I will try to write these reviews objectively, I cantmake any promises especially when it comes to games involving Trabzonsporand, for completely different reasons, games involving Fenerbahce. With allthat said, I think its time for a brief rundown of the first weeks action.

Eskisehirspor 2-1 BesiktasThe first game of the week was an exciting fixture. Eskisehirspor were avery competitive team back in the mid-70s. After spending some time in thelower leagues, they were promoted a few seasons ago and have been relentlessever since. I respect them tremendously because of their extremely devotedfans (they actually have a team band composed of a brass section that playsalong with the chants during the games). Young playmaker Alper Potuk issomeone to watch carefully on this team. Besiktas are Besiktas. They areone of the Big 4 and they are also one of the big three Istanbul teams. Afterthe heir of the wealthy Demiroren family became chairman of the club, theywere able to bring on the likes of Hugo Almeida, Guti, Quaresma, Bebe andSimao. Unfortunately, their talent never gelled properly, so they had a veryunderwhelming season.Besiktas suffered from the same problems that plagued them last season: agroup of extremely talented individuals who cant play together as a team,the lack of a talented goal keeper and an under-performing Quaresma. Whilethe game was neck-to-neck for the first half, Eskisehir dominated during thesecond half and got a well-deserved victory with a fantastic shot from youngstriker Batuhan Karadeniz.

Samsunspor 3-2 GenclerbirligiNewly promoted Samsunspor faced off against Genclerbirligi, who barely es-caped relegation last season. Despite being new to the league, Samsunsporhave a lot of top-tier football experience. They also have a squad that wasable to lock up the promotion spot well before the end of the season. Addon to all of this the fact that Samsun is a formidable place for any team tovisit, and youll see that its no surprise that Samsun was able to walk pastGenclerbirligi.

Manisaspor 1-1TrabzonsporWe lost some of our key players at the end of last season. ExperiencedTurkish-international CB, Egemen Korkmaz went to Besiktas on a free trans-fer, and Turkish-international playmaker, Selcuk Inan (the guy known in

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Turkey as the Turkish Fabregas) went to Galatasaray on a free transfer.This loss, combined with the added responsibility of playing in the UEFACL, meant that we had to fortify our ranks with some new blood.Manisaspor have always been a tough team to play. Their key players havebeen playing together for quite a few seasons and their new manager is veryoffensive minded (hewas the assistant to Ersun Yanal, who is my favoritemanager ever).We started off the game well and scored an absolutely beautiful goal towardsthe end of the first half. A bad challenge from behind left Manisaspor a mandown at the end of the first 45 minutes. Unfortunately, we were not able toput the game away with a few more goals we missed some pretty ridiculouschances and Manisaspor eventually wrestled the control of the game awayfor us. They were able to score an equalizer in the 88th minute of the game.

Ankaragucu 1-2 Mersin I.Y.Ankaragucu has always been a solid mid-table team; however, they had somefinancial troubles during the off season. They werent able to pay all of theirplayers, so they had to let some of the key members of their squad go. Newlypromoted Mersin strengthened their squad by transferring some players withloads of top tier football experience (most notably, Marcio Nobre of Besiktasand Fenerbahce fame).Two beautiful goals by Nobre gave Mersin a very precious three points inthe first week of the new season.

Bursaspor 3-0 KayserisporThis match put two of the stronger teams in the Super League against eachother. After losing some key players, Bursaspor were able to beef up theirsquad with some valuable additions. Kayserispor lost their key playmaker,Cangele, to an injury during the first few minutes of the game. Without,Cangeles creative abilities to help Kayserispor, they sort of rolled over toBursaspor. The second and third goals by Bursaspor were absolutely beau-tiful.

Karabukspor 2-1 SivassporSivasspor were a force in the league only a few seasons ago, they had lostthe title to Besiktas in the last week of the season. Everyone expected themto be a contender from that point on; however, they sold some of their keyplayers, didnt bring in any noteworthy talent, so theyve been barely avoiding

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relegation for the past few seasons.Despite being promoted last season, Karabukspor were able to finish in theupper-half of the table due to some attractive attacking football and thetalents of Emmanuel Emenike (who now plays for CSKA). Karabuk startedstrong at home with a comfortable three points against Sivas.

I.B.B. 2-0 GalatasarayOn paper Galatasaray have the strongest squad in the Turkish league. Theyhave Muslera in goal, Ujfalusi and a pair of Turkish national defenders in theback, the have Felipe Melo, Eboue and Selcuk Inan (the Turkish Fabregas,remember?) playing in the middle, and they have Milan Baros and Elmanderup top. They have Emperor Fatih Terim at the helm. They also have themost modern, newest stadium in Turkey. What can go wrong?I.B.B. are an interesting team. They are the fourth team from Istanbul;however they are the team of the Istanbul municipality. So, they literallyhave no fans no exaggeration. They have the largest stadium in Turkey (ableto seat 80,000) but it is mostly empty for all home games. Since this teamhas no fans, a website (which can best be described as a Turkish version ofReddit) decided to adopt I.B.B. as their team. These guys have formed a fangroup (called the Grey Owls) and they go to each match now home or away.They usually have funny signs that they like to display during the games.The score line doesnt really reflect the pace of the game. Galatasaray didnot deserve to win I think this game should have ended in a tie. Eboue wasreally good in his Turkish league debut, as was Felipe Melo (despite the factthat he should have received a red card for an elbow that was missed bythe ref). Muslera dropped a pretty shitty ball to give I.B.B. a one goal leadGalatasaray were unable to control the game after that point.

Antalyaspor 1-0 GaziantepsporThis was a pretty even game between two evenly matched teams. Antalyawas able to grab all three points in the 79th minute of the game througha nice cross to the far post that was followed up by a header from tirelessmidfield dynamo Ugur Inceman.

Fenerbahce 1-0 OrdusporFenerbahce was the team hit hardest by the match fixing scandal (rightfullyso). The club president, Aziz Yildirim, is currently in jail. They lost theirChampions League spot. Their stock lost quite a bit of value on the Turkish

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Stock Exchange and they ended up selling their best players to make up forthe financial troubles that the club were experiencing (Lugano, Niang andDos Santos).Fenerbahce barely scrapped by against newly promoted Orduspor and gotthe win in this game. It would have been a completely different story if FatihTekke had not missed two incredible chances for Orduspor at the beginningof the game.

7 Norwegian League Quick Summery

Prepared By Eispeis

The Norwegian season runs from March to November so there are onlybetween 8-9 games leftSo far:

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Molde are topping the league and are looking likethe strongest contenders for their first league title in Solskjaer’s first seasonin charge.

Troms in second are 6 points adrift with a game in hand and have provedto be a serious challenger in the last 5 years without actually succeeding.Their leading goal scorer is on loan from Valerenga which deemed him sur-plus to requirments. He is the top scorer in the league and the little brother ofHannover 96 striker Moa (Mohamed) Abdellaoue, his name is Mos (Mustafa)Abdellaoue. Meanwhile Valerenga are struggling for goals in a very disap-pointing 8th place.

Brann are finding themselves in a very surprising 3rd place having soldlast season’s star player Erik Huseklepp to Bari (now in Pompey). They’vestrenghtened with players from the second tier and people thought they werea shoe-in for relegation this season. Not so (Yay!)

The mighty Rosenborg has had a shitty season, but are starting to buildup steam. Winning their two last games 7-0 and 6-0 respectively and withtwo games in hand they’re in 4th 12 points off the top. Anything less than a

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medal would be a huge disappointment for the team that has won 16 of thelast 19 titles. They only lost 1 game during 2009 and 0 during 2010. So farthey’ve lost 5 of 20 games this season.

Former Man Utd and Blackburn great Henning Berg has led Lillestrm toa somewhat disappointing 9th so far.

In the relegation zone newly promoted Sarpsborg 08 and expected mid-table team Start are finding themselves hopelessly adrift with 8 and 7 pointsup to a safe spot respectively.

The Norwegian league consists of 16 teams with the bottom two relegated.

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