Sporting CP v Galatasaray Spor Kulübü

 

Sporting CP v Galatasaray Spor Kulübü
Wednesday September 9th, 2026
Estádio José Alvalade
UEFA Champions League Matchday 1

Whilst the draw for the 2026/27 Champions League was made on Thursday August 27th, we had to wait until the Saturday for the fixtures to be announced. I stupidly put my faith in the order in which they were displayed would be correct because as hard as it might be to believe, these previews don't write themselves you know. So in the interim of finishing work and the away trip to Rio Ave I was busy researching and writing the preview tor the game that was listed as our first opponent, namely RC Lens. Turns out the powers that be had other ideas so fuck you UEFA. But thank you Sporting for at least beating Rio Ave 4-0. So that's why you all had the Lens preview before the Galatasaray one. Oh well one less match for me to have to research if nothing else.

Now I knew that the side hailing from Türkiye were a massive club both domestically and globally in terms of its fan base but until I looked at the numbers I hadn't realised just how big they were. If you follow Portuguese football you'll be acutely aware that our rivals Benfica are the richest and most well supported club by a country mile. As they say though there is no accounting for taste. Yet even they look small fry when compared to the Turkish lions whose fan base is estimated to be anywhere between 35 million and 42 million strong. Generally it's recognised in Türkiye that for every ten people you pass, four of those will be Galatasaray fans. Even if we take the lowest estimates of their total fans, it's safe to suggest there's three times as many Galatasaray fans as their are Portuguese people. They're not fair weather fans either, they take their football very seriously and come with a ferocious reputation. As one of their infamous banners displayed at their stadium reads - Welcome to Hell. So Sportinguista's should be thankful this is being played at home in the more tranquil surroundings of the Estádio José Alvalade on Matchday 1 with no return leg.

The last time Sporting travelled to Türkiye was to face Beşiktaş and the whistles from the home fans were quite frankly deafening. Well at least up until the point Sporting put the game to bed and shut them up as they eventually ran out 4-1 winners. Turkish football mirrors Portuguese football in a lot of ways in that the landscape is dominated by a select handful of clubs. Galatasaray are estimated to be followed by approximately 40% of the entire Turkish population, swiftly followed by rivals Fenerbahçe with 35% so you don't have to be a maths genius to work out that either 3 in every 4 Turkish people support one of the two footballing giants or depending on how you want to frame it, 1 in every four follow one of the remaining clubs or don't give a shit about football at all. Which like in Portugal with Os Três Grandes of Sporting, Porto and Benfica causes a huge disparity in the distribution of wealth. In Portugal just five teams have ever won the league title and only two of those have come outside of the aforementioned Os Três Grandes with Boavista and Belenenses claiming one apiece. The Süper Lig came into existence in 1959 and only six clubs have ever been crowned title winners so one more than Portugal if nothing else. Again two sides with just one win apiece in Bursaspor and İstanbul Başakşehir. Trabzonspor now home to Mo Salah and once home of João Pereira have won 7, Beşiktaş 16, Fenerbaçhe 19 and top of the pile are Gala with 26. Fenerbaçhe tried to break the dominance of Galatasaray by famously hiring Portugal's most successful ever coach José Mourinho who only succeeded in gaining less points than the coach they sacked the summer before. Having proceeded to fail to qualify for last season's Champions League losing to Benfica, the Eagles gave him an out and took him as the replacement for Roger Shit. Sorry, Schmidt. I miss him. Mourinho took Benfica to an invincibles season last campaign in the Portuguese top flight winning the sum total of fuck and all but despite his lack of success over the last two seasons is now the boss of Real Madrid again. I mean fair play but this is meant to be a blog about Galatasaray so I'll try get back on track. 

Turkish football definitely feels like it's going through a renaissance period right now and that was highlighted with Mo Salah choosing to move there this summer and forgo the tens of millions he would have earned of he'd gone to Saudi Arabia. Not that he'll have to get his begging bowl out anytime soon I'm sure. But it was still a huge statement signing and a big advert for the Süper Lig which has historically gone through a lot of financial troubles and controversy over the decades. With that in mind I have to admit to being surprised by some of the numbers thrown about I'm terms of players wages especially at Galatasaray, they are eye wateringly large. Victor Osihmen is reported to earn in the region of £310,000 to £326,000 a week. On top of that to entice the biggest foreign names to Galatasaray, they're also reported to also pick up their tax bill which given how much he earns would be in the 40% bracket though other footballers generally only pay a lower rate of 20%. If that information is correct then with savings on tax, basic pay, image rights, loyalty bonuses et al, the club are in for €35m...per annum. Sporting CPs basic salary costs before bonuses and image rights is reported to be €35.44m and bear in mind if we sell Pedro Gonçalves on top of Trincão and Hjulmand this summer we'll have cleared all of our biggest earners from our wage bill. So when I say there are some raised eyebrows at the money sloshing around in Turkish football I'm not kidding. Because let's face it, it's not like their coffers are being swelled by the type of TV rights deals found in the Premier League and neither have they being picking up Champions League money albeit Galatasaray did feature in last season's competition. 

In the last ten seasons Beşiktaş have featured three times, İstanbul Başakşehir once and Galatasaray four times. So Türkiye having both Galatasaray and Fenerbaçhe in this season's competition is a big deal.

Note - I thought accents on Portuguese words were a ball ache. Turns out Turkish ones are next fucking level. 

TV rights annually for the entire league - €163.1m. Galatasaray’s share approximated to be around €15.32m and that's with an additional bonus for winning the title which is being scrapped and will be redistributed amongst all top flight clubs. So if all those figures are true and correct they're paying their biggest earner roughly €20m more than they're getting in TV money annually domestically. They must have a fucking great commercial department worth their weight in saffron.  

For the period of June 1st, 2025 to February 28th, 2026 the club reported a profit of €14m. Why it’s reported after eight months and not quarterly I have no idea. That was based upon the following sources of revenue;

GSStore: €88.6 million
Season tickets, boxes & VIP: €69.4 million
Sponsorship: €59.6 million
UEFA revenue: €52.6 million
Broadcasting rights: €9.0 million

Total debt stands at a reported €492m. 

I try not to have any expectations when it comes to Sporting in Europe because you're only ever 90 minutes away from disappointment. This season's Champions League however will bring with it a feel of a staggered family reunion. You've Rafael Leão with Galatasaray, Bruno Fernandes and possibly Manuel Ugarte with Manchester United though the latter is out long term injured. Mateus Nunes at Manchester City and Raphina at Barcelona. If you followed my summer series on the rise and fall of Bruno de Carvalho at Sporting CP you'll no doubt remember that after the Alcochete attacks Rafael Leão and Bruno Fernandes were two of the players who rescinded their contracts although the latter would reverse his decision and sign a new contract. It really should also be highlighted that his transfer fee saved the club from a financial point of view at that time but that'll matter little when it comes to the reaction of a small minority of fans I'm sure. Despite the circumstances in which Viktor Gyökeres left last summer he received an excellent reception when he returned with Arsenal to the José Alvalade earlier this year so let's hope it's similar. The lions have pulled off some massive shocks in recent iterations of the competition such as the 4-1 win against Manchester City and last season's 2-1 win over the eventual champions PSG. Yet we know they're also equally as capable of getting it all wrong, think Bodø away which ended in a 3-0 defeat and one of the worst European performances in recent memory although there's plenty of competition for that one - Marseille, LASK, Atalanta… I won't go on.

Galatasaray were founded after the turn of the last century on October 1st, 1905 although that date is disputed. Nicknamed Aslanlar (The lions), Sari-kirmizililar (the yellow-reds), Cimbom and Gala. They play at Rams Park on Aslantepe (Lion's Hill). It forms part of the Ali Sami Yen sports complex which takes its name from the club's founder and has a capacity of 53,387. It's construction was finished in 2011 at an equivalent cost in today's money of $358m which feels like a bargain when you consider Tottenham spent over a billion pounds constructing their stadium by way of comparison. Not that the construction was an easy process with initial plans dating back as far as 1997. Still probably easier than building in Italy for what it's worth. The Rams Global sponsorship of the stadium is said to be worth €8.6m annually. 42,649 season ticket holders listed for the current season, their average gate for last was 45,432.

They're owned by their socios and Dursun Özbek holds the equivalent club president title to our own Varandas. They're one of only three teams to have never been relegated from the Süper Lig. They are in addition the only Turkish club to have won a European title and won both the 2000 UEFA Cup and Super Cup. Their name means Galata Palace. 

They're located in Karaköy, the modern name for the old Galata which is part of İstanbul which itself was once Constantinople. If you're old enough you'll maybe know there's even a song about the latter. It is generally considered to be one of the most beautiful and important trading cities in all the world given it's position between Europe and Asia. In fact depending on which part of the city you're stood in you could be in either continent. Talk about a city divided. 

Like Lisboa, İstanbul is home to several football teams but they boast one more giant as the city also plays host to Fenerbaçhe and Beşiktaş. I can't see any of the other Lisboa clubs ever growing to rival Sporting or Benfica. 

They recovered from finishing a lowly 13th place in 2021/22 to win the next four league titles. Last season a post-Mourinho Fenerbaçhe ran them close again finishing 3 points behind and were ultimately undone by 11 draws despite only losing twice all campaign. Galatasaray's record read played 34, won 24, drawn 5 and lost 5. GF 77, GA 30. Of those 77 goals scored 56 came from open play, 11 set pieces, 6 penalties and 4 own goals. They outperformed their xG metric of 70.8. Top scorers Victor Osihmen with 15 and Mauro Icardi with 14. The remainder were shared between 14 other players. Osihmen scored 7 in the Champions League with seven players contributing the remainder of their 17 total. Away from home just 1 win, 3 losses, GF 4, GA 8. They averaged 1.4 goals per game, conceding 1.7. A total of 3 clean sheets. Second for most accurate long balls per game averaging 27.1 and fourth for most accurate crosses per game with 5.3. Their xG conceded of 26.4 the fourth worst. Interestingly Bodø had the worst with 28.9, Atlético de Madrid 27.9 and Qarabag 27.6. There was everyone thinking Diego Simeone sides were still predicated on defensive foundations. 

2025/26 Champions League record

Group Phase P8 W3 D1 L4 GF 9 GA 11

They finished in 20th place good enough for a play off spot, whilst the lions finished 7th in automatic qualification. 

Group phase results;

Eintracht Frankfurt (A) 5-1 L
Liverpool (H) 1-0 W
Bodø/Glimt (H) 3-1 W
Ajax (A) 0-3 W
Union St.Gilloise (H) 0-1 L
AS Monaco (A) 1-0 L
Atlético de Madrid (H) 1-1 D
Manchester City (A) 2-0 L

Play offs

Juventus (H) 5-2 W
Juventus (A) 3-2 L (Progressed 7-5 on aggregate AET in Turin)

Round of 16

Liverpool (H) 1-0 W
Liverpool (A) 4-0 L (Lost 4-1 on aggregate)

Their present Süper Lig campaign started with a 2-2 draw at home to Çorum who held a 2-1 lead until the 89th minute. Former Nacional forward Ramírez scoring what had looked like the winner on the hour mark on his debut. Kryiridis saw red for the visitors on 69’ and ten men against the league champions proved too much. Osihmen scored both their goals. 

Erzurumspor proved much easier opponents on the road on Matchday 2. Osihmen with another brace, plus goals from Sallai and Ajgün giving them a 4-0 win. 

Against Göztepe at home they fell behind after 15’ only to turn it around to 3-1 by the 62nd minute with goals from Sánchez, Sara and Osihmen from the penalty spot. Juan made it 3-2 on 64’ but Gala held on for 3 points. They have a massive derby away on the Sunday before they travel to Lisboa against İstanbul Başakşehir so any thoughts of resting key players will have gone out the window. Thank you to whoever draws the fixtures for the Süper Lig. Yet clearly the Nigerian forward is in fine goalscoring form with 5 goals in 3 matches and he's scored a third of his total league goal contribution of last campaign with another 31 games to play. It could be a big season for him numbers wise. 

Whilst the wages of Osihmen may seem excessive, qualification to the Champions League more than pays for the outlay and the more they consolidate a position in the new group phase the more the business model begins to makes sense. The danger of course will always be overloading the wage bill to such an extent that failure to qualify becomes an albatross around their necks. Having their great rivals Fenerbaçhe in the tournament whilst potentially good for the Turkish coefficient, does mean however that financially they won't be able to pull away, though for the pair it should strengthen their dominance domestically. For the lions their squad certainly isn't as strong on paper as it was last year but they're future proofing their business in a way, moving on top earners, refreshing once more on young talent who have an opportunity to put themselves in the shop window of Europe's elite and become the next big exit out the door in seasons to come. There will come a stage where they don't qualify and that loss of revenue whilst hugely impacting won't be as damaging as it was under the stewardship of Bruno de Carvalho who basically gambled and lost on the Champions League revenues for the 2018/19 season. I picked eleven sides I thought we should finish above in the group table but that won't be good enough for a play off place so some of the new crop of summer signings are going to need to up their games over the forthcoming eight fixtures. The pace of Rafa Leão, Leroy Sané and Victor Osihmen up front will cause a lot of defences an awful lot of headaches so it may be a good time to play them before they're all able to bed and gel as a unit. Putting all your eggs in one basket in terms of the outlay on forward players does of course leave them vulnerable in all other areas of the field and like the lions it appears they're defensively vulnerable. Their derby next weekend may give us a better indication of just how vulnerable. I'm sure the lions coaches will be watching on with great interest. 

Summer transfer window 

Incoming 

Rafael Leão – AC Milano £37m
Aleksey Batrakov - Lokomotiv £22m
Lesley Ugochukwu - Burnley £3m

Outgoing 

Metehan Baltaci - Gençlerbirliği (Loan)
Elias Jelert - Le Harvey (Loan)
Ali Turap Bülbül – Amed Sportif 
Halil Dervisoglu - Gaziantep (Loan)
Ali Efe Çördek - Belediye Bingölspor K (Free)
Yalin Dilek - Bandirmaspor (Loan)
Umut Erdem - Rizespor (Free)
Ege Araç - Adanaspor (Loan)
Ahmed Kutucu - Rizespor (Loan)
Mauro Icardi - Released
Nicolò Zaniolo - Udinese £4.3m
Wilfried Zaha - Released 

In the markets

Sporting CP 10/11
Draw
Galatasaray