Galatasaray lions laugh last and loudest

Faithful Galatasaray fans in İstanbul and throughout the country celebrated their team’s 17th Turkcell Super League championship until the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Galatasaray Lions were crowned the 2007-08 Turkcell Super League champions at İstanbul's Ali Sami Yen Stadium on Saturday after first-half goals by Hakan Şükür and Halkan Balta gave them a deserved 2-0 home victory over visiting Ankara's Gençlerbirliği OFTAŞ Spor.
And the championship was made all the sweeter because the Lions truly speaking achieved this feat without a coach. To recap septuagenarian Karl-Heinz Feldkamp quit as coach of the Galatasaray Lions in early April citing a "difference in point of view with the board." The 73-year-old German had announced in March that he would step down at the end of the season and take up an administrative role but left his post prematurely along with assistant Ahmet Akcan. The Galatasaray board blatantly refused to hire a new trainer and put the team under the tutelage of General Manager Adnan Sezgin along with assistant coaches Burak Dilmen Cevat Güler and goalkeeper coach Nezih Ali Boloğlu.
Going into Saturday's final games Galatasaray was three points ahead of last season's champion Fenerbahçe and only needed a draw or one point to be crowned champion. For the Fener Canaries they not only had to beat the Trabzonspor Black Sea Storm away in Trabzon but the Lions also had to lose for Fener to be champions. Exactly the opposite happened: the Lions beat OFTAŞ and the Canaries forget about winning or even drawing were humiliated 2-0 by the Trabzon Storm. Ironically this was Trabzon's first victory this season over the İstanbul "Big Three" -- Galatasaray Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş.
"No one speaking with reason and common sense can say we do not deserve this title because we did perform magnificently and I'm very happy for the players and the fans" ecstatic assistant Galatasaray coach Güler said after the match.
The Lions won the Super League championship and that was the end of the long story. So the big-spending Canaries without a Turkish Cup win in a quarter century and eliminated in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals by Chelsea also missed out on the this season's league title and thereby wound up winning nothing at all. The Canaries nonetheless can take heart because as the runners-up they qualified for the big-time UEFA Champions League next season.
Festivities
At Ali Sami Yen Stadium festivities continued in aaaa swing. And the arrival of a huge live Lion in a cage mounted on a pickup truck was greeted with a deafening chorus of "Şampiyon Cim Bom Bom" (champion Cim Bom Bom being the nickname of Galatasaray).
Thousands of Galatasaray fans converged on the famous İstanbul Square and other squares throughout the country to celebrate the 2008 UEFA Cup and European Cup champion's 17th Turkish league triumph.
The Turkcell Super League championship was a happy ending for the Lions to say the least. The cash-strapped team neck-deep in debt played six matches this season behind closed doors as punishment for the misbehavior of its fans. And at some point almost all the team's aaa players including the two top foreign signings Cassio Lincoln and Tobias Linderoth were at the infirmary and only 11 made up of mostly reserves were fit play. But the Lions overcame all these hardships to clinch the coveted crown. The end justifies the means: Galatasaray is the new champion and it's all smiles at the Lions camp.
UEFA Cup
The remaining UEFA Cup berth was also settled. The Beşiktaş Black Eagles 5-1 home winners over relegated Vestel Manisaspor on Saturday will be representing the country in this competition next season along with Fortis Turkish Cup winner Kayserispor. Tiny central Anatolian side Sivasspor will have to make do with the Inter Toto Cup despite beating Gençlerbirliği 2-0 in the capital. Fenerbahçe Beşiktaş and Sivasspor have 73 points but Sivas has the worst head-on-head record among the three.
The three bottom teams -- Kasımpaşa Vestel Manisaspor and Rizespor -- have been relegated and therefore will be doing business in Ligue 1 (second division) next season.

Other results on the final day were as follows: Gaziantepspor 1 Büyükşehir Belediyespor 0; Denizlispor 5 Çaykur Rizespor 1; Kayserispor 0 MKE Ankaragücü 0; Ankaraspor 1 Bursaspor 1; Kasımpaşa 2 Konyaspor 1.