The club began defending its title just before this match – the Turkish Super Lig has already started. And they weren’t in a hurry to make transfers in Istanbul either. Only at the end of July did they buy out Icardi’s contract, whose goals largely contributed to confidently regaining the “gold”. A bit earlier, they finalized transfers for Zaha and Bakambu, and Kerem Demirbay came from Bayer in this calendar period. However, the “blood-gold” team is currently comfortably progressing through the qualification. It was a bit tougher against “Zalgiris”, where they first had a competitive 2-2 draw in Vilnius, and only at home, thanks to Mertens’ sole goal, were they able to overcome the Lithuanians. But against the Slovenians, they managed to rout them – and once again, Dris was involved in scoring. Although this time, the hero was Akturkoglu, with a scored goal and an assist in the final minutes, sealing the final 3-0 score.
After Slovenia became independent and formed its own championship, the team managed to establish dominance, resulting in four consecutive championships from 1992 to 1995. However, then “Maribor” and company dethroned the team from the top spot. It’s enough to say that there were no new titles until 2016. Over the last few seasons, the capital’s project has only managed to clinch the title three times, including in the spring, which earned them a spot in the UEFA Champions League qualification. There, under Joao Henrique’s guidance, they pleasantly surprised everyone. Following their victories against Latvian “Valmiera” (twice with a score of 2-1), they managed to overcome a strong adversary, “Ludogorets” (1-1 in Razgrad, 2-1 at home with the deciding goal in the 92nd minute). However, nothing worked out in Istanbul.
