The 398th meeting in the eternal rivalry: Interesting notes from Fenerbahçe – Galatasaray derbies

In the 18th week of the Süper Lig, Fenerbahçe will host Galatasaray at home tomorrow (December 24). In a rivalry spanning over 114 years, the two eternal rivals will face each other for the 398th time.

The first goal in the rivalry between the two teams was scored by Galatasaray player Emin Bülent Serdaroğlu.

Galatasaray, which won the first match held on January 17, 1909, at a place called "Papazın Çayırı" (The Priest's Meadow) 2-0, did not concede a goal to its rival in the first 7 matches.

FENERBAHÇE WAITED 5 YEARS FOR ITS FIRST VICTORY

Fenerbahçe was able to score its first goal and achieve its first victory against Galatasaray in the 8th meeting of the rivalry.

Winning the Istanbul League match held at the Union Club field on January 4, 1914, 4-2, Fenerbahçe thus ended its silence against its rival that had lasted for approximately 5 years.

The first goal in history for the yellow-navy team against Galatasaray was scored by Hasan Kamil Sporel.

MATCHES WITH THE FEWEST AND MOST SPECTATORS

The match with the fewest spectators between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray was the one on November 17, 1922.

The match, which was played at the İttihat Field under a downpour and which referee Fethi Tahsin Başaran had to officiate with an umbrella, was watched by 14 people, all of whom were without tickets.

The league match held at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium on September 21, 2003, was followed by 70 thousand 125 spectators. This number went down in history as a record for the number of spectators watching a match between the two teams.

THE GOALSCORERS OF THE RIVALRY

The player who scored the most goals in the rivalry is Fenerbahçe's Zeki Rıza Sporel. Sporel found the back of the net a total of 27 times in the 42 matches he played against Galatasaray.

Zeki Rıza Sporel was followed by another Fenerbahçe player, Alaattin Baydar, with 24 goals. Fenerbahçe's Lefter Küçükandonyadis has 20 goals, while Galatasaray's Metin Oktay has 19 goals in the rivalry.

Meanwhile, Tanju Çolak, who played for both teams, has a total of 22 goals in the rivalry, 14 of which were scored in a Galatasaray jersey and 8 in a Fenerbahçe jersey.

In league matches, Galatasaray's Metin Oktay with 9 goals and Fenerbahçe's Aykut Kocaman with 8 goals were the top scorers for their respective teams.

TURGAY ŞEREN'S RECORD

The record for the most appearances in Fenerbahçe-Galatasaray matches belongs to the late Turgay Şeren.

Şeren, one of the unforgettable goalkeepers of the A National Team and Galatasaray, holds the title of the player who has appeared the most in the rivalry, having guarded the yellow-red goal 55 times against Fenerbahçe.

YEARS FULL OF LONGING

In some periods of the rivalry, the two teams struggled to establish superiority over each other in terms of victories.

Fenerbahçe could not win for 11 consecutive matches, and Galatasaray could not win for 18. After the match it won 2-0 on November 20, 1949, Fenerbahçe could not win for 11 consecutive matches and was able to gift its fans a victory over Galatasaray with a 1-0 score on February 22, 1953.

Galatasaray, on the other hand, could not win for 18 matches after the match it won 3-1 on May 17, 1942, and left the field victorious with a 1-0 score in the 19th match on December 1, 1946.

THEY MET IN 18 DIFFERENT STADIUMS

Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray have met in 18 different stadiums in a rivalry that has accommodated 397 matches.

The rivals took the field at Istanbul İnönü, Ali Sami Yen, Fenerbahçe, Taksim, Şeref, Ankara 19 Mayıs, Atatürk Olympic, İzmir Atatürk, Ankaragücü, Türk Telekom, Yeni Erzurum (now known as Erzurum Kazım Karabekir), Offenbach, Frankfurt, Cologne, Mönchengladbach Borussia Park, Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality Kadir Has, Manisa 19 Mayıs, and Antalya stadiums.

THOSE WHO EXPERIENCED THE EXCITEMENT AT BOTH TEAMS

Many players had the chance to wear the jerseys of both teams during their football careers.

The players who played for both teams in the recent period are as follows:

Raşit Çetiner, Güngör Tekin, Erdoğan Arıca, Engin Verel, Mehmet Oğuz, Erhan Önal, Arif Kocabıyık, İlyas Tüfekçi, Tanju Çolak, Semih Yuvakuran, Selçuk Yula, Hasan Vezir, Benhur Babaoğlu, Elvir Boliç, Sedat Balkanlı, Saffet Sancaklı, Ahmet Yıldırım, Sergen Yalçın, Emre Aşık, Fatih Akyel, Elvir Baliç, Haim Michael Revivo, Abdullah Ercan, Mehmet Yozgatlı, Stjepan Tomas, Servet Çetin, Emre Belözoğlu, Caner Erkin, Kazım Kazım, Mehmet Topal, Burak Yılmaz, Olcan Adın, Serdar Aziz, Şener Özbayraklı, Tolga Ciğerci, Garry Rodrigues, Sinan Gümüş, Emre Mor.

THOSE WHO SCORED FOUR GOALS IN ONE MATCH

In the Fenerbahçe-Galatasaray rivalry, the highest number of goals scored by a single player in the same match has been 4 so far.

Galatasaray players Celal İbrahim, Cemil Gürgen, and Metin Oktay, as well as Fenerbahçe player Zeki Rıza Sporel, achieved the feat of scoring four goals in a single match against their rival.

THE MOST COMMON SCORE: 1-0

In the 114-year history of the two teams, the most common result in the 397 matches played has been 1-0.

The 1-0 result occurred exactly 74 times in matches between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray, while the 2-1 score was recorded 49 times.

THE MATCH WITH THE LARGEST MARGIN

Galatasaray achieved the victory with the largest margin in the matches played between the two teams with a 7-0 result.

Galatasaray won the match played in the Istanbul League on February 12, 1911, 7-0.

FENERBAHÇE'S VICTORIES WITH LARGE MARGINS

Fenerbahçe achieved its largest margin of victory against its rival Galatasaray in the match played in Kadıköy in the first half of the 2002-2003 season.

The yellow-navy team, which won the match on November 6, 2002, 6-0, also signed off on the victory with the largest margin between the two teams in league matches.

THE HIGHEST-SCORING MATCHES

In the highest-scoring matches between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray, excluding penalties, sports fans saw a total of eight goals.

In the league match played at Ali Sami Yen Stadium on June 5, 1983, the rivals drew 4-4. The Turkish Cup semi-final match played between the two teams on February 7, 2001, also ended 4-4.

THE ABANDONED MATCH AND THE HISTORIC FIGHT

The Istanbul League match played by the rivals on February 23, 1934, was abandoned due to a fight that broke out between the players.

In the 60th minute of the match played at Taksim Stadium, the field suddenly became chaotic after Galatasaray's Kadri Dağ kicked Fenerbahçe's M. Reşat Nayir, and Fenerbahçe's Fikret Arıcan, who was running towards Kadri, was grabbed by Galatasaray's Tevfik and thrown to the side of the field. The fight that started between the players of the two teams grew as spectators in the stands joined in.

The "Regional Football Committee," which gathered after the abandoned match, handed down one of the heaviest penalties in Turkish sports history and punished a total of 17 players, 9 from Fenerbahçe and 8 from Galatasaray, with long-term suspensions.

Beşiktaş, the team that benefited the most from these penalties, finished the season as champion ahead of its rivals.

FOREIGN REFEREES

Foreign referees have officiated in the history of the rivalry.

Among them are Czech, British, Greek, Italian, Austrian, German, Swiss, Romanian, Hungarian, Yugoslav, Belgian, and Bulgarian referees.

LEAVES FROM HISTORY

Galatasaray's Bahri Altıntabak and Fenerbahçe's Şeref Has and Nezihi Tosuncuk were players who scored goals for both their own team and the opposing team in the history of the rivalry.

Şevki Şenlen, Raşit Çetiner, İlyas Tüfekçi, Hasan Vezir, Saffet Sancaklı, and Tanju Çolak experienced the joy of scoring in the rivalry while wearing both Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe jerseys.

Among the players who changed teams in the rivalry, those who transferred after wearing the captain's armband at their former teams were recorded as Naci Erdem, who moved to Galatasaray while he was the Fenerbahçe captain, and Mehmet Oğuz, who moved to Fenerbahçe while he was the Galatasaray captain.

THE RIVALRY IS BEAUTIFUL WITH FRIENDSHIP

Many displays of sportsmanship have been witnessed in the 114-year history of the rivalry.

Despite the increasing tension between the two clubs in recent years, the sportsmanlike behavior of players and managers in the past added color to this enjoyable struggle.

According to compilations by sports historians, before a derby, Fenerbahçe Chief Captain Galip Kulaksızoğlu sent word to the Galatasaray players, saying, "The Oberle brothers are sick, and Hasan is injured. We do not want to see you in front of us with a missing squad. If you wish, let's postpone the match," conveying that the match could be postponed.

Galatasaray, which accepted this proposal from Fenerbahçe, defeated its yellow-navy rival 6-1 in the postponed match played on October 20, 1914, after the players recovered.

THEY RENTED HOUSES TOGETHER AND WENT HUNTING

According to the same sources, in the early days of the rivalry, Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe athletes stayed in houses they rented together and went hunting together.

Athletes from both teams would come together at night and chat. Again, one night when the conversation was getting deep, Ali Sami Yen from Galatasaray warned the Fenerbahçe players, saying, "Said, you have a match with us tomorrow. Go to bed and rest."

THEY PROPOSED A POSTPONEMENT

An interesting situation occurred before the match played between the rivals on November 17, 1922.

On this date, the two teams had a match in Kadıköy. The rain that had been falling for days before the match had turned the field into a lake. Fenerbahçe Chief Captain Galip Kulaksızoğlu called the Galatasaray Club and said, "The field is very bad, let's postpone the match." Galatasaray Chief Captain Necip Şahin replied, "Our mothers gave birth to us for today, Mr. Galip. We will come and play the match." Galatasaray came to Kadıköy and took the field, and Fenerbahçe won the match 3-0.

THE MERGER SITUATION AND THE JOINT TEAM

It was claimed that in the early years of the rivals' establishment, there were even situations of merger, and that the two club presidents even agreed to form a joint team.

In the February 2003 issue of the Galatasaray magazine, the official publication of the Galatasaray Club, in a news report based on documents by Adnan Işık, it was noted that a document signed jointly by Galatasaray Club President Ali Sami Yen and Fenerbahçe Club President Hulusi Bey in 1912 showed that even if they did not merge, the two clubs agreed to form a joint team against foreigners, and even prepared the statutes.

THE DELIBERATELY MISSED PENALTY

An interesting event took place in the Vatan Newspaper Cup match played by the rivals at Taksim Stadium on January 23, 1925.

After a penalty won by Fenerbahçe, the large balcony section of the stadium collapsed before the shot. Upon this development, Fenerbahçe's Cafer Çağatay deliberately handed the ball to goalkeeper Ulvi Yanal during the penalty kick.

JOINT TEAM: "FenerSaray"

After Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray played one friendly match each with foreign teams they invited to Turkey in 1934, they played the third match as a "Fenerbahçe-Galatasaray Combined Team."

The jersey of this combined team consisted of navy blue, yellow, and red, which are the mixture of the colors of the two clubs.

A LESSON IN SPORTSMANSHIP FROM CANAYDIN

While incidents have occurred in most of the matches between the two teams in recent years, the late president of the Galatasaray Club, Özhan Canaydın, received applause for his sportsmanlike approach to the rivalry.

In the match where the yellow-red team suffered a historic defeat with a 6-0 result against its rival in Kadıköy on November 6, 2002, Özhan Canaydın, who watched his first Fenerbahçe derby as president, left his mark on the match by applauding the goals scored by his rival and congratulating the Fenerbahçe managers.

Although the late Canaydın received some reactions from his own community due to this display of sportsmanship, he was deemed worthy of the 2002 World Fair Play Award by the International Fair Play Committee (CIFP). Özhan Canaydın also received the Fair Play Sporting Behavior Award organized by the Turkish National Olympic Committee (TMOK) for this behavior.