Turkish Super Lig had some cracking matches with the second half beginning only 3 game weeks ago. But this game was something even more special compared to the other games in the second half of the league. Fenerbahce needed to win this game to not lose track against Galatasaray in the title race and Adana Demirspor had to get some points in order to stay in front of Trabzonspor to compete for European spots for the first time in their history. Two foreign coaches, Jorge Jesus and Vincenzo Montella, had a battle to be remembered for the rest of the season recording 45 shots combined for both teams. Even though the game had some questionable refereeing causing the whole Turkish public to go down a rabbit hole about refereeing standards once again, the game ended in a 1-1 draw which I can imagine both sides weren’t too happy with.
Ratings:
- A1 – Very good, could play higher
- A2 – Strong potential to play higher
- B1 – Good, strong player at level
- B2 – Potential to be a strong player at level
- C – Average for the level, rewatch
- D – Below average in this match
Ferdi Kadıoğlu
- Nationality: Turkish/Dutch
- Age: 23
- Date of Birth: 07/10/1999
- Club: Fenerbahçe SK
- Career: NEC Nijmegen(Y), Fenerbahçe SK
- Position: Right-Back
- Preferred Foot: Right
The latest star of Fenerbahçe to be caught on the radar of top European clubs is Ferdi Kadıoğlu. And there’s a reason behind it. A number #10 by origin turned to wing-back to full-back was definitely one of the wildest career progressions I’ve witnessed. And now he’s one of the best full-backs in the league and in the world for his age group. In a game with a very high tempo, Ferdi didn’t struggle one bit to fulfil both his defensive and offensive responsibilities. Throughout the game, he has once again shown his versatility. He started the game as a right-back, then moved to left winger after some subs and in the last phases of the game, he was the left-back.
Offensively, even though he is a full-back, he can be the main creative outlet for his team at many times. His overlaps were key for Fenerbahçe in many attacks. And he’s got a great eye for decent crosses and shot passes, dishing out 4 key passes to his teammates. He’s also a great dribbler that likes to take on 1v1’s and he usually came out successful in these duels. His ability to keep the ball during dribbling even under immense pressure should not be overlooked either.
Defensively, he’s very hard to beat on 1v1’s both in narrow spaces and wide spaces. He almost bullied Onyekuru, the opposition winger, allowing him to complete only 5 passes. Onyekuru lost 14 balls and won only 1 ground duel from 7. He also looked really good tackling the ball this game as well. After some time, Adana completely gave up attacking Ferdi’s wing and changed their focus to centre of the pitch so it’s fair to say he has done a great job.
Physically, he has looked great. He has great core strength and balance which helps him to stay on his feet even after contact. He also won 9 out of his 16 duels. His stamina is also top-level, he can play his 100% for 90 minutes straight and he didn’t look out of place even though he changed positions three times.
Rating – A1
This game wasn’t his best but it was a great blueprint of his quality against a strong team. He has the ability to play for almost every team in the top 5 leagues and strong European clubs like Benfica and Porto. He is not a dynamo that keeps running the whole pitch over and over but he’s very intelligent on the ball and does what he needs to do almost every time.
Diego Rossi
- Nationality: Uruguayan
- Age: 24
- Date of Birth: 05/03/1998
- Club: Fenerbahçe SK
- Career: Penarol, LAFC, Fenerbahçe
- Position: Winger
- Preferred Foot: Right
Diego Rossi leads the assists charts for Fenerbahçe in all competitions and he’s won 3 crucial points for them in the game against Başakşehir with a rocket from outside the box. However, this game definitely looked like one to forget for him. In the first half, he had a long range shot that was very off target and didn’t do much after that at all.
He was deployed as a right winger at the game but ended up looking like a midfielder trying to control the centre of the pitch. He was not a threat at all to Adana and they didn’t have much trouble keeping him under control. He was also dominated by the very physical Adana team. He seemed like he lacked balance and strength because he was unable to resist any contacts and lost the ball constantly trying to draw fouls.
The only positive I’ve noticed from him were the decoy runs. Now, I mean decoy runs as runs to distract Adana’s defense from the main threat, usually Batshuayi. Valencia ran wide with the ball a lot during this game, so Rossi cut inside and made runs in the box to distract the back line and split them a bit causing Batshuayi to find spaces. However, these decoy runs were not used properly. Valencia insisted on creating chances for himself and didn’t take advantage of these spaces.
Rating – B1
Normally, if I went off only on this 1 game, his rating would be a lot lower but as an avid watcher of the league, his ceiling is much much higher than this performance. He can cause a lot of disruption in the box and near the goal. He also proved himself in MLS, where he performed even better than Turkey. So if a team at a higher level wants a dynamic player who can take part in great pressing schemes, he might be worth a look.
Altay Bayındır
Player profile:
- Nationality: Turkish
- Age: 24
- Date of Birth: 14/04/1998
- Club: Fenerbahçe SK
- Career: Ankaragücü, Fenerbahçe
- Position: Goalkeeper
- Preferred Foot: Right
Altay Bayındır had a pretty shaky start to this season and was heavily criticized by many Fenerbahçe fans who knew his potential from the past seasons. However, he was definitely the best player on the pitch and there probably would be no counter argument about this by anyone. And this game might be a turning point for the rest of his season.
Adana had 20 shots to their name at the end of this game and they had 2 penalties but they could only score once and that’s thanks to Altay. He saved one of the penalties with his foot by only a couple of centimeters. And he had 8 total saves at the end of the game which a couple were really tough to save. He usually has a weak spot covering the balls from the wings but at this game, he seemed pretty decent at them too. He also rushed out at the right times to recover long balls behind Fener’s defence before Adana got to them which he was not really good at in previous matches as well.
But he had some flaws in this game too. First of all, he committed a penalty where it really wasn’t necessary but he almost punched the Adana player to get the ball before he got it. He also played a pretty big amount of long balls but they weren’t able to connect with his teammates.
Rating – A2
2 seasons ago, Altay had many eyes on him and he was able to impress those eyes too. A young goalkeeper, put the team on his shoulders and tried to keep them in the title race by himself. But last year, an early injury in the season set him back quite a while and he was not the same Altay. However, this game had glimpses of the past Altay we all know well. Considering that he’s got less than 6 months to end of his contract, to get a good pay day, he might want to keep this performance up. And if he keeps this performance up, a great move might not be too far from him.
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