Lame Lions give Skibbe the boot, appoint ’great skipper’

Galatasaray suddenly sacked coach Michael Skibbe yesterday, only nine months after the German took charge.

The defending Turkcell Super League champion had suffered a string of poor results recently, and the death knell was the massive 5-2 home defeat Sunday to lowly placed Kocaelispor. That result leaves Galatasaray floundering in a disappointing fifth in the league, eight points behind leader Sivasspor.

Galatasaray declared the dismissal in an announcement made on the club’s official Web site.

"We had a relationship of mutual understanding and amity during his time at the club," said the statement. "We thank him for his service and wish him all the success in his life."

The 43-year-old took over the job as coach of the Istanbul giants last summer after being fired by Bundesliga outfit Bayer Leverkusen.

Following the sacking of Skibbe, the club declared former Galatasaray player Bülent Korkmaz would replace the German immediately. Korkmaz’s first test will be the UEFA Cup game against Bordeaux on Thursday.

The club announced that Korkmaz would be on a one-and-a-half year contract.

Hailed as "the great skipper" by team fans, Korkmaz is known for being only the second footballer to play for no other team but Galatasaray, after legendary goalkeeper Turgay Şeren. Captaining the team during the immensely successful 1996-2000 period, Korkmaz became Turkey’s most trophy-winning player, with eight league titles, six Turkish cups, five Turkish Super Cups, one UEFA Cup and one European Super Cup.

Korkmaz led minnow Kayseri Erciyesspor to the Fortis Turkish Cup final that brought the team an eventual UEFA Cup berth in his first experience as head coach in 2006-2007 season. The following year, he had short stints with Bursaspor and Gençlerbirliği, but has not been managing a team since the mid-stages of last season. Galatasaray have failed to sustain a consistent rythym since the turn of the year, winning only one of five league games; getting four points out of a possible 15.

Good dream turns bad

The weekend began promising for Galatasaray: Trabzonspor and Fenerbahçe both lost their games and it had a decent chance to close in on the top of the Turkcell Super League. All the Lions needed was a win but they ended up on the wrong end of one of the heaviest defeats in the clubs history.

It all seemed last year’s champion would have no trouble beating bottom-dweller Kocaelispor at home and could get on with thinking about Thursday’s UEFA Cup clash against Bordeaux. The eventual result was something even the most pessimistic Galatasaray fan would never have imagined: A 5-2 blow.

Although Mehmet Topal opened the scoring with a firm shot from outside the box in the 15th minute, Kocaelispor leveled the game as Taner Gülleri followed a loose ball after goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis failed to clear. Kocaeli hit on the counter attack once again 10 minutes later with Murat Hacıoğlu.

The second half was almost a one-sided affair with Galatasaray’s forwards continuously testing Kocaelispor goalkeeper Kılıçarslan Kopuz. But leaving huge spaces at the back, Galatasaray was completely killed by Gülleri, who made the score 3-1 in the 53rd minute.

Lincoln pulled one back in the 74th minute, and Galatasaray had a clear chance to equalize again in the dying moments after being awarded a penalty. But Milan Baros failed to convert and probably changed the course of Galatasaray’s season. And Skibbe’s.

It was Gülleri that shone again in the last seconds. Somehow he managed to score two classy goals to dig the Lions into an even deeper pit.

Had the game ended 3-2 for Kocaelispor, there was a good chance that club board would not feel that it needed to act in such urgency. But while Gülleri was completing a dazzling four-goal performance, alarm bells rang louder and louder for Galatasaray.

This was only the second time that Galatasaray has conceded five goals on its home pitch in its 50-year league history, with the first one being a 5-3 defeat to Trabzonspor in 1998.

So it was not a surprise that Chairman Adnan Polat signalled a change after the game.

"I have been working at Galatasaray for seven years and I can’t remember a day when we allowed five goals on that stadium," said Polat. "Anyone who is responsible will pay for that."

Polat kept his promise apparently, sending Skibbe packing right after the defeat. With a strange touch of coincidence, Skibbe’s reason of departure bearings of the reason he was appointed as Galatasaray coach in the first place.

Skibbe first became a part of the Turkish football scene when he led Bayer Leverkusen to knock Galatasaray out of the UEFA Cup last year. After a goalless draw in Istanbul, Leverkusen trounced Galatasaray 5-1, and Skibbe earned himself a name in Turkish football. Strangely, and in a further twist of fate another five-goal defeat led to his demise.

"You already heard why we are here," said Skibbe at the press conference. "The club decided to lend coaching duties to someone else because we could not get the results we wanted in the second period of the league."

Skibbe said that Galatasaray was an important step in his career, and regretted ending it this way.

"Personally, I rate Galatasaray experience as a valuable one in my career, and after I started, I wished to end this ’big Galatasaray adventure’ with a better ending," he explained. "I wish Galatasaray all the best in the Bordeaux game and thanks to everyone that worked with me."

Hero of the day: Taner

Before Sunday’s game, Taner Gülleri already had an interesting scoring record. The veteran striker scored goals in all four of Kocaelispor’s games against Turkish football’s "big four," but his side lost all those encounters. But Taner changed it with a shout at the Ali Sami Yen Stadium.

The 33-year-old, who scored 21 goals last year in the Bank Asya League One to lead his team to the top-flight, scored against Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş. While celebrating the last one, he was running to the stands with a three-finger gesture. Four weeks after, when he scored one to Trabzonspor, he would change his gesture to "four," understandably.

But it was not until Sunday that his scoring feat was translated into points for relegation-threatened Kocaelispor. Gülleri had a magnificent four-goal performance against Galatasaray, which is a season-high performance for any player in any game in the Turkcell Super League.

The striker’s four goals showed a distinct class of touch, as the first goal came from a well-placed shot outside the box and the last two came with cool finishing abilities.

Gülleri increased his goal tally to 13 goals, two shy of scoring leader Galatasaray’s Milan Baros, which is quite an achievement for a veteran striker who passed most of his career in lower division sides such as Fethiyespor, Beykozspor, Sakaryaspor, Adana Demirspor and Tarsus İdman Yurdu.

"I am 33 years old, so I found my scoring touch a little late," said Gülleri. "But I will try to play as long as my body lets me."