© EuroFootball.com
For the 16th time in the club's history, the football players became champions of Turkey. In the penultimate round, the Istanbul club defeated their closest rivals "Galatasaray" 1-0 and widened the gap to an unbeatable five points from the team in second place.
"Galatasaray", who have been champions of Turkey 15 times, dropped to third place after this defeat, with "Trabzonspor" taking their spot by defeating "Samsunspor" 3-0 on Sunday.
In the final round, "Galatasaray" and "Trabzonspor" will fight for the second ticket to the UEFA Champions League allocated to Turkey.
This title was the second in a row for the club's coach, German Christoph Daum. More than two years ago, he won the title of Austrian champions with Vienna's "Austria". Despite this success, experts say that C. Daum's position as head coach is not very stable.
The driving force of the club this season was the Brazilian Alex de Souza, who scored 22 goals, and his compatriot Nobre, who scored 15 goals, including the only goal in Sunday's match against "Galatasaray".
Sunday's match was the last game at home for the Dutchman Pierre van Hooijdonk, who was a true star of the club last season but played little this year due to injury and will leave the club in the summer - he will return to his homeland and represent the team "NAC Breda".
