Czech international striker Milan Baros scored two goals in the Galatasaray Lions' 4-3 away victory over Swiss side Bellinzona in the UEFA Cup first-round, first-leg match last Thursday and Aussie international winger Harry Kewell and Brazilian playmaker Lincoln Cassio de Souza Soares added one each.
The Galatasaray foreign players were again on the score sheet as the Lions came from one goal down to crush cellar-dweller Kayserispor 4-1 in their Turkcell Super League week-four clash at İzmit's İsmetpaşa Stadium.

Taner Gülleri put host Kocaelispor ahead in the 10th minute with a powerful shot from inside the box that left Galatasaray's new Italian keeper Morgan De Sanctis completely dumfounded. But Baros equalized for the Lions in the 31st and Nonda doubled the score in the 57th. Baros was on target again in the 80th to make it 3-1, and Kewell scored two minutes later to put the match out of reach.

"I am very happy with this result," Galatarasay's German coach, Michael Skibbe, said in his post-match press conference. "And I tell you we will get even better," he added.

Last season Galatasaray had seven foreign players -- Cameroonian defender Rigobert Song, Swedish midfielder Tobias Jan Hakan Linderoth, Lincoln, Ghanaian midfielder Ahmed Barusso, Argentine midfielder Marcelo Adrian Carrusca, French defender İsmael Bouzid and Congolese striker Shabani Christophe Nonda -- on its squad.

But these players were rarely fielded, or not fielded at all, because most of them were sent to the doghouse due to their inconsistent play or to the club's infirmary in Florya to recuperate from their injuries. So in the end the Lions wound up winning the 2007-08 Turkcell Super League championship with an all-Turkish squad since the foreign players were considered physically unfit by former German coach Karl-Heinz Feldkamp.

Of those seven foreign players last season only three -- ailing Linderoth, Lincoln and Nonda -- are still with Galatasaray; the other four have left for new pastures and the Lions have acquired three more foreigners, Kewell, Portuguese defender Fernando Meira and Baros.

Skibbe, Feldkamp's successor, is fielding all foreign players, except Linderoth, and the Lions have won their last two matches. The general consensus, however, is that Bellinzona and Kocaelispor were not quality adversaries. And so whether or not Galatasaray, which was eliminated in the qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League, has really turned the corner will be known in the matches ahead.

TODAYSZAMAN