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Storm, with one foot in final, wary of Scorpions
A victor must emerge today, so the Scorpions will need to win by 3-0 or more to advance to the final. A 2-2 draw at fulltime would send the game into extra time -- and maybe a penalty shootout if the match is still deadlocked.
But the pressure this evening, without the slightest doubt, will be on Antalyaspor because it has do most of the thinking, playing and even the scoring to stay alive.
No room for complacency
The Storm, however, is not taking anything for granted despite the first-leg advantage. And veteran coach Şenol Güneş warned his Black Sea lads against complacency on Monday.
“Irrespective of the result of the first leg, we will be playing against a strong Turkcell Super League side,” Güneş wrote on the Trabzonspor Web site on Monday. “We have full respect for our opponent [Antalyaspor] and are taking this match very seriously,” he noted.
“We have to be extraordinarily careful because there is no room for error. We want to play in a European cup competition next season and winning the Turkish Cup is a short cut to Europe,” he further stated.
Lanky Trabzonspor striker Umut Bulut concurred with his coach. “No match is ever won until it is played,” the striker said on Monday. “So we cannot call ourselves finalists until after the second leg [of the semifinal]. We must try and clear the Antalya hurdle on Wednesday [today] and then think about the final,” he added.
Antalya set for mission impossible
“Overturning the 2-0 deficit from the first leg will not be easy at all,” Antalyaspor coach “Şifo” Mehmet Özdilek said on Monday. “But this team [the Antalyaspor Scorpions], has done great things in the past and so can also accomplish great things on Wednesday [today] by qualifying for the final,” he asserted.
“It won’t be easy because the moment we concede a goal we will make a tough task even more difficult. We must show staying power and strive to obtain a result that will be enough to take us to the final,” he added.
Match officials
Referee: Yunus Yıldırım
Assistant referees: Mustafa Emre Eyisoy and Ekrem Kan
Fourth official: Hakan Ceylan
Live on TRT 1
20:00 Antalyaspor vs. Trabzonspor
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