Europa League:X-ray of Galatasaray

Benfica has a clash scheduled against Galatasaray for the second leg of the round of 32 of the Europa League. Before the match at Estádio da Luz, at 8 pm on Thursday, February 21, the Official Website shows you what Galatasaray did in the last match in the Turkish League.

For the match from round 22 of the championship against Kasimpasa, the coach Fatih Terim made some changes in relation to the European competition. The defense and the midfield suffered some changes, with Galatasaray using, for example, Emre Tasdemir as left-back, a footballer who is not registered in the Europa League; ins the midfield, highlight for Ryan Donk and Ínan as starters, two players who were not used against Benfica in Istanbul.

Galatasaray won 1-4 away from home, with a goal from Belhanda and a hat-trick from Féghouli. The Algerian winger was the man of the match and had an efficacy above average: three goals in four shots on target. He also stood out, according to Wyscout, in the three successful dribbles in five attempts, in the 50 completed passes in 60 carried out, he was successful in 60 of the 85 actions in which he took part and recovered two balls in the opponent's defensive midfield.

The defensive midfielder Fernando is not an option for Fatih Terim -suspension for yellow cards– and will miss the opportunity to return to Portugal. Another player who did not play against Kasimpasa was N’Diaye.

Offensive power and efficacy

Collectively, Galatasaray displayed interesting stats against Kasimpasa. The platform Wyscout shows us an effective Turkish team, which 60% of the shots hit the target (six in 10); had a 67% ball possession and a very high pass accuracy percentage: 90% (596 in 663). It is also strong in the set pieces: three of the four corner kicks resulted in shots on target.

However, the team lost more balls than the ones it recovered (77 against 89), its players only won 39% of the duels they took part in, and the crossing efficacy was just of 20% and allowed the opposing team to finish the match with more attempts (12) that the ones they made (10).

Text: Marco Rebelo

Pics: Facebook of Galatasaray