Konyasporvs.Galatasaray

The hosts kicked off their campaign with a victory away with Kasimpasa, while their visitors began their title defence by scraping past Hatayspor last Friday.

Match preview

Konyaspor return to action on Friday looking to make it six points from their first two outings of the 2024-25 Turkish Super Lig season, after narrowly avoiding relegation in a particularly tricky campaign last time around.

In the 2023-24 term, the Anadolu Kartali finished 16th in Turkey's top flight, just one point and one place above the relegation zone having jumped out with two games left to play thanks to a 3-0 victory over Samsunspor courtesy of goals from Steven Nzonzi, Guilherme and Sokol Cikalleshi.

Although the season ended with a draw against Kayserispor and a final-day 3-1 home defeat to Galatasaray in the teams' last meeting, Ali Camdali's side had done enough to steer clear of the bottom four in his first month at the helm, before he guided them into a first full campaign on the back of a pleasing pre-season run which produced two victories, two draws and a solitary defeat to Udinese.

With the hopes of a more comfortable mid-table finish, their new top-flight campaign then began with a trip to Kasimpasa on Saturday, and after going ahead through Pedrinho, they trailed 2-1 heading into the final 10 minutes following goals from Nuno Da Costa and Claudio Winck, only to draw back level through Danijel Aleksic before Umut Nayir netted a winner in the dying embers.

With spirits bound to be high after their opening-day turnaround and three-point haul, Konyaspor now head into a tougher test on Friday aiming to build on that result with another impressive victory to build a strong start to their season.

That will be no easy task, though, as the visitors also arrive in search of back-to-back victories following a historic top-flight triumph last time around.

Galatasaray headed into the 2024-25 Turkish Super Lig campaign with the aim of winning a third consecutive Turkish Super Lig title and the 25th in their history, having retained the crown by winning the league with a record tally of 102 points from their 38 outings in the 2023-24 term.

From those games, the Sari-Kirmizililar only suffered two defeats alongside 33 victories, including their 3-1 triumph in the final-day trip to Konyaspor in late May to get over the line as Mauro Icardi netted a brace and Berkan Kutlu added a third.

Then following a mixed pre-season run and a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Istanbul rivals Besiktas in the Turkish Super Cup at the beginning of August, Okan Buruk's side kicked off their league campaign at home to Hatayspor on Friday and looked set to fall to another defeat, trailing 1-0 heading into the final 10 minutes, but Icardi produced a leveller from the penalty spot before Michy Batshuayi snatched all three points with a 90th-minute winner.

While their first two competitive outings of the season may be slight cause for concern, Galatasaray do head into Friday's trip having opened their Super Lig defence with a victory, and they will aim to make it six points from two games with a more convincing victory on Friday.

Konyaspor Turkish Super Lig form:

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