Galatasaray

There are three main soccer teams in Istanbul: Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş. They all have fierce rivalries and literally everyone who lives in Istanbul is a zealous fan of one of these teams. Our program assistant, Alican, lives in Istanbul and is a Galatasaray fan, so he took us to a Galatasaray game on Saturday night. When we met up with him, Alican was decked out in Galatasaray gear: jersey, vest, scarf, and sweater. I thought it was a little over the top until I saw that almost every other fan was dressed the same.

Alican met us in our dorm and helped us navigate the city’s convoluted public transit system to get to the stadium. Galatasaray’s colors are red and yellow, so the fans stand out in a crowd of ordinary dressed Turks (the clothing style is pretty conservative here—almost exclusively dark colors and certainly no reds or yellows). On each leg of our journey a few more Galatasaray fans would join us until by the last metro stop the hub was a sea of red and yellow.

Alican used to work in the media industry for 12 years and still has lots of connections. Before the game he was able to get us an interview on Galatasaray TV (yes, the teams has its own television channel). So if you happen to be watching Galatasary TV and see some clueless Americans trying to answer questions about the soccer scene in Turkey, that’s us. The final question the interviewer asked us was “soccer fans in Turkey are very rowdy; are you guys going to be this restrained the whole game?” He was right about the rowdy fans.

The game itself was a great experience. I have played soccer since I was five, but I had never been to a professional game before so it was a dream-come-true to be in that stadium watching world-class players. For those of you who know anything about soccer, Didier Drogba, who used to be one of the best forwards in the world (he’s 35 now—old by professional soccer standards), plays for Galatasaray.

Galatasaray pulled off a 2-0 victory, so the fans were elated. (I’d hate to see what they are like when they lose). Soccer is literally a religion here, and you do not want to be on the wrong side of the arguments that often ensue. It can actually be dangerous to wear a soccer jersey incase you come across a fan of the rival team who’s looking to pick a fight—or worse, a whole group of them.

There was only one scary moment during the whole soccer game experience: we were walking in the subway station when suddenly there was an earsplitting bang that was certainly loud enough to be a gun shot. Turns out it was just a couple of idiots setting off fireworks underground. Other than that, there were plenty of loud, rowdy fans, but nothing threatening. 

View of the stadium

View from the stadium