football rambles

Photo of Muslera saving Fernandez's penalty. Wesley Sneijder tracks back after Porto clear his corner. Porto attack the Galatasaray goal. Some random action from the game.

We were supporting Galatasaray in this game. I was behind them due to my connections with some of their fans in Azerbaijan and Sean got into supporting them after seeing them try and turn Finsbury Park into Istanbul before the game kicked off. It promised to be a decent game from the start with the Turkish team fielding a strong team that included Didier Drogba and Wesley Sneijder as well as ex-Arsenal player Emanuel Aboue. Porto went for their traditional 4-3-3 with Jackson Martinez as the target man. It was hard to say if the team was a strong one in some aspects though as Porto are a selling club that always seem to reinvent themselves into a successful team. Porto started the brighter of the two teams, but I was impressed with the Cim-bom defence, that was until Kelvin went down (perhaps a bit too easily) under a challenge from Chedjou. Fernandez stepped up to take the penalty, but it was hit tamely and it was easily saved by Muslera in the Galatasaray goal. Sneijder and Drogba...

Didier Drogba warms up for Galatasaray before they played Porto. The Galatasaray team get ready before the game. The teams line up before the kick off.

A few photos from the Emirates from before the tournament started.

Last year there was no Emirates Cup because of the Olympics, but the tournament was back this year. In 2011 Arsenal were joined by PSG, New York Redbulls and Boca Juniors. This time the opponents were Galatasaray, Porto and Napoli. The Arsenal fans lived up to their reputation of not creating any atmosphere and being more interested in consuming hot dogs and buying replica shirts, but there was a pretty big Turkish contingent, who made their presence known inside and outside the ground. The Napoli fans were also in good form and a rendition of 'Bella Ciao' made them more popular with me. The next few posts will be about things that happened on the day. We were there on the first day when Porto played Galatasaray and Arsenal took on Napoli. The tournament as a whole was eventually won by Galatasaray after a great performance by Didier Drogba in the final game against Arsenal on Sunday.