Inside Prem side’s sister club where fan attacked player with CORNER FLAG with Solskjaer a victim of amazing rise
FROM a fan hitting an opposition goalkeeper with a corner flag to beating Istanbul giants Besiktas – Southampton’s sister club in Turkey have come a long way.
It will be no consolation to fans of the managerless, already-relegated Saints, but owners Sport Republic have overseen an impressive return to the top flight for their Turkish outfit, Goztepe.
And Southampton loanees Juan, a striker from Brazil, and Kuryu Matsuki, a Japan Under-23 midfielder, have been part of Goztepe’s success this season.
Both played in this month’s 3-1 win at Besiktas – now managed by former Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – which earned Goztepe a place in the semi finals of the Turkish Cup for the first time in nearly half a century.
The game brought back memories of their 1960s and early 1970s heyday when the leading club in Turkey’s third biggest city, Izmir, regularly gave the big boys from Istanbul a bloody nose.
And the Goztepe fans’ passion is making it a thrilling ride.
Rasmus Ankersen, Sport Republic co-founder and Goztepe chairman, said: “The intensity is something you just don’t see in modern football.
“The fanbase is very emotional and very aggressive.
“The volatility of it – It’s like playing with rocket fuel.
“When everything goes in the same direction, as it has for big parts of this year, it’s unbelievable.
CASINO SPECIAL – BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS
“But when it’s not, the pressure the fans can put on their own players from the stands is huge.”
Sport Republic bought 70 per cent of Goztepe from oil tycoon Mehmet Sepil in August 2022, seven months after their takeover at Southampton.
The London-based firm, co-founded by former Saints chairman Henrik Kraft and backed by Serbian billionaire Dragan Solak, became the first foreign investors ever to take control of a Turkish club.
Goztepe, who sank as low as the fifth tier in the 2000’s, had just been relegated after a five-year stay in the Super Lig.
Things did not start well for the new regime.
Manager Ahmet Balci was sacked after a handful of games. Successor Ekrem Dag oversaw an upturn in results but in late November 2022 came the day of shame that went viral on social media.
Goztepe’s home clash against Izmir rivals Altay had already been halted in the first half so that ambulance crews could attend to fans injured during clashes in the stands.
But then a Goztepe fan invaded the pitch, plucked out one of the corner flags and started thrashing Altay goalkeeper Ozan Evrim Ozenc with it.
Players and stewards restrained the attacker and the game was abandoned.
Goztepe recovered from the embarrassment to finish sixth and reach the promotion play-offs.
But they fell at the first hurdle and Dag left the club in the summer, with Radomir Kokovic promoted from within to take charge.
The Serb lasted less than four months and Sport Republic turned to Stanimir Stoilov in November 2023.
Former Bulgaria international Stoilov had an impressive coaching pedigree, especially for someone managing a second-tier side in Turkey.
He had enjoyed historic success in the first of two spells at Levski Sofia that came at either end of a long career that included taking charge of the Bulgaria and Kazakhstan national teams.
After Stoilov’s arrival, Goztepe lost only two more league games for the rest of the season and their second-place finish earned them a return to the top flight.
TURNING OF THE TIDE
Before the home games at the 20,000-capacity Gursel Aksel that were crucial to promotion, Turkish pop star Levent Yuksel led the crowd in spine-tingling renditions of his famous song Med Cezir (“Tide”).
It has become Goztepe’s version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, a love song about loyalty to a partner repurposed to express devotion to a football team.
The supporters sing about the highs and lows and after admitting “There’s no way to give up on these tides”, they raise the volume.
“My storm, my disaster, my longing,” they yell, “it’s not enough – making love is not enough, how pretty your violence is, oh how sweet your kindness, I want to love you more and more, I’ll follow you until I die and never let you go”.
But it’s not just the Altay goalkeeper who has tasted the other side of Goztepe fans’ passion.
The joy of promotion was quickly forgotten after a minor setback last summer.
Ankersen said: “We lost our first friendly game to Charlton during our training camp in Slovenia.
“There were big protests against us for not doing more transfers… I had to do a press conference to calm everyone down.”
There was more unrest when Goztepe had to play their first home game back in the top flight on a neutral ground because their own pitch was not in good enough condition.
Ankersen said: “We did not have a CEO at the time so the Chief Financial Officer was the leading executive.
We lost our first friendly game to Charlton
Rasmus Ankersen
“Our fans still travelled in huge numbers and there were 10,000 people all jumping up and down, calling for him to leave the club.”
But confidence was pretty high that Goztepe would make a good fist of the Super Lig, with a top-10 finish as the target.
The gap between the top two tiers in Turkey in terms of quality and financial might is not nearly as big as in England and other countries.
“A REVELATION”
Sport Republic and Stoilov have built the second youngest squad in the league and made them play with a kind of English-style intensity and physicality that is unusual in Turkish football.
They have also focused on set-pieces and become one of the most potent teams in the world from dead-ball situations.
In Goztepe’s second game back in the Super Lig, an equaliser in the 95th minute by on-loan Brazilian striker Romulo earned a morale-boosting 2-2 draw from 2-0 down at home to Fenerbahce, managed by Jose Mourinho.
Then in late November, Stoilov’s side won 4-2 at Besiktas and a good spell took them as high as fourth in the table.
Observers feel Goztepe have been unlucky in the current run of 11 league games without a win which has ended their bid for a top-four place.
But there was nothing fortunate about their 3-1 win at Besiktas.
Solskjaer’s side, which included former Arsenal, Liverpool and England star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, took a first-half lead.
But the game turned on a professional foul on Goztepe’s Juan by Besiktas centre back Tayyip Sanuc, which earned him a red card in the 36th minute.
Romulo – described as “a revelation” by Ankersen – scored direct from the resulting free kick,
With less than 15 minutes to go, ex-West Ham full back Arthur Masuaku handled the ball in the penalty area and Romulo converted the penalty.
Soon afterwards Romulo, on loan from Athletico Paranaense, completed his hat-trick with a deft lob.
On Thursday, Goztepe will travel to Trabzonspor for the semi final as they aim to win the Cup for the first time since back-to-back successes in 1969 and 1970.
If the club went on to win the trophy, they would have the chance to relive another exploit of their glorious past.
In 1968-69, Goztepe became the first Turkish club to reach the last four of a European competition when they went all the way to the semi finals of the Fairs Cup, the forerunner of the Uefa Cup that was in turn rebranded as the Europa League.
A cup triumph would earn them a place in the play-off for Uefa’s second-tier tournament.
Southampton fans, whose FA Cup win of 1976 put them on the map, will hope that Sport Republic can bring the good times back to St Mary’s, too.
And that the Saints avoid the fate of Sport Republic’s other club, French side Valenciennes, who are currently in the third tier after relegation last season.
As Goztepe’s anthem says, fans have no choice but to ride the waves of football’s ebb and flow.