Whenever someone talks about Turkish football, 3 clubs come into mind; Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas.
Until last year, the Turkish Super League had only 4 champions in its 50-year history but the trend was broken last season as a fifth team rose to prominence.
Before winning the Turkish Super League title, not many people outside http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Bursaspor-c38700, and when they won the title many eyebrows were raised. The unexpected rise of Bursaspor has been a long time coming and very soon we will see more new
teams from Turkey being crowned champions.
The reason for this is the renewal of broadcasting contracts in Turkey that has given every club a chance to raise the bar. But sadly, the usual favorites haven’t used the new contracts to their advantage.
The usual favorites ‘used’ to be Besiktas, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray, but after the end of the first half of this season, only Fenerbahce is in the top 3 positions.
14 points divide league leaders Trabzonspor and Besiktas while Galatasaray are only 9 points away from the dreaded relegation zone.
Fenerbahce are the only club of the trio that is close to Trabzonspor by 9 points. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Trabzonspor-c40759 last won the league 20 years ago and there is no guarantee that the side will break the jinx as the Turkish league has become very unpredictable recently.
This sudden momentum shift makes people wonder what actually happened that made the usual pre-season favorites become so ordinary.
Turkish Super League isn’t as highly reputed as the other European leagues and so, it’s not a very appealing destination for top class players.
Before the trio-trend was broken, only Besiktas, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray were able to lure some of the best players in the world to Turkey. Players from Europe, South http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Roberto-Carlos-c31317 joined Besiktas
from Real Madrid before retiring and Gheorghe Hagi joined Galatasaray and became an even greater player than when he was in http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Spain-c3011 and is still a revered figure in Istanbul. The Romanian is so in love with his former club that he came back to put the club out
of it's misery.
Now, the trend has been broken as the other Turkish clubs with greater finances are able to bring in good players from other continents.
Turkish football also struggles in finding local talent and the player restriction rule in the league is a problem for every club. A club has to start every match with 5 local players according to the ruling and the rest of the six players can be foreigners.
Then there’s another ruling that allows the club to have only 2 foreign players on the bench, and, during a game, a foreign player can be brought on only for a foreign player. It means that every Turkish club ends up having 2 foreign players who will not
start a game if they have 8 imports- which is very confusing.
Trabzonspor is holding the 1st place in the table so far this season but traditionally, they tend to fade away by midseason. This choking trend has been upheld by Trabzonspor for the past 20 years.
But, perhaps, this season might not be that way for Trabzonspor. After collecting 42 points from 17 games with three draws and only 2 defeats, they have a great chance of winning the league this time. Many would call the half-season exploits as impressive
and will naturally suggest that the title is their's to lose.
The thing that most people are ignore is that the leaders are not a very closely knit team. Trabzonspor can still disintegrate as they do have a few loose cannons without trajectory on the board. But manager Senol Gunes is experienced and is a wily fox and
he has managed to keep the unit together pretty impressively.
There are still 17 weeks till the end of the season and there is no guarantee that the team will win the title again.
The Turkish League is becoming more and more exciting, and the “New Turk Order” is going to guarantee that new Turkish champions will emerge over the years and the monopoly of the current titans will be broken.
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