In their league match at Istanbulspor, Galatasaray professionals Mauro Icardi and Kerem Aktürkoglu dared to take a special penalty – and failed miserably.
Galatasaray Istanbul underlined their strong start to the new SüperLig season on Tuesday night, but that was not what stuck from their 1-0 away win at basement side Istanbulspor. The focus was on a penalty, which the reigning Turkish champions missed in a special way.
In the 37th minute, with the score at 0-0, Kerem Aktürkoglu stepped up to take the spot kick, ran but did not shoot, instead rolling the ball to the left with his sole. There, attacker Mauro Icardi came rushing and only had to push the ball into the almost empty goal against the already beaten goalkeeper David Jensen – but instead put it past on the left and ruffled his blond-dyed hair in disbelief.
In 1982, Johann Cruyff and Jesper Olsen had scored from the penalty spot for Ajax Amsterdam in a similar manner – at the time even via a one-two – which Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez repeated in 2016 in the FC Barcelona jersey. Aktürkoglu and Icardi missed out on joining this little club quite miserably.
Coach Buruk “respects” the audacious plan
After all, just five minutes later Icardi still scored the winning goal for FC Bayern’s Champions League opponents. This time, the 30-year-old Argentine, who moved to Istanbul from Paris St. Germain in the summer of 2022, scored from a far more difficult position on the bottom left, exactly where he had already aimed for the penalty. And so coach Okan Buruk was allowed to speak of “important three points” that lifted Galatasaray to first place.
The 49-year-old was not angry with the two prevented penalty takers. “Last year they wanted to try it out in a few games,” Buruk revealed. He respects the idea, after all, the penalty could have been missed. And it was also “no disrespect to the opponent”, after all, “there have been attempts like that before”.
Nevertheless, Icardi now has a strong seven goals from six games. In 2022/23, he had contributed a whopping 22 to the title in 24 appearances – although he missed three of nine penalties.
