Galatasaray have moved since Man United’s 1993 ordeal and now there’s a posh hotel on the site, but their fans still bring the noise and fury… welcome to a new HELL

The doorman at the Fairmont Hotel in Istanbul’s Mecidiyekoy district smiled as I walked into the lobby and asked him if he could give me directions to the site of the old Ali Sami Yen Stadium.

He looked around theatrically and then pointed to the floor. “You insist,” he said.

Where there was once so much noise and anger, conference delegates walk around nibbling biscuits and hotel guests come and go, unaware that this was once one of the great cathedrals of European football.

The last time I saw a Galatasaray home match at this venue in 1999, an armored car was parked on the forecourt of the famous old arena and soldiers crowded around the edge for the visit of Gianluca Vialli’s Chelsea in a group stage match of the Champions League. so full of tension that it seemed more like the prelude to a gunfight than a football match.

The pre-match atmosphere was as feverish as any match I’ve ever been to. The stadium shook with the choreographed exhortations of 22,000 fans, the majority of whom had been in the ground for hours. It was not unlike the ‘Welcome to Hell’ that Manchester United had received six years earlier.

“I’ve never experienced anything like Galatasaray,” said Ryan Giggs, years after the tumultuous draw in Istanbul that ended in chaos. ‘Two hours before kick-off we went to see the pitch and the stadium was packed. The singing was brilliant: one side starts, then the other, then quiet, then they all sing.”

Paolo Maldini, AC Milan and Italy great, was also impressed by the noise in the Ali Sami Yen. “No one can make me believe there are only 22,000 people in this stadium,” he said.

Experiencing it, you got the sense that it was the antidote to the corporate dullness that began to take over football towards the end of the century.

But it also had a terrifyingly ugly, brutal side.

I always thought the fans’ antics were harmless pantomime acts until two Leeds fans were murdered by Galatasaray supporters before a UEFA Cup semi-final draw here in 2000. That put to rest any idea that English fans ever could be complacent about their safety at football matches. visit here.

Chelsea found the perfect antidote to the hostility when Tore Andre Flo scored after 32 minutes and the noise suddenly turned to silence.

Chelsea eventually won 5-0 and many fans who had crossed their throats in the traditional greeting to the visiting football teams left before the end.

There are no remains of the old stadium there now if you go looking for Hell. The street outside is called Ali Sami Yen Alley, but that is the only record that ever existed.

There is no plaque commemorating the monument that once stood there.

It was demolished in 2011 and cleared by the destroyers, who said defects in its construction meant it was a miracle a stadium collapse had been averted.

“We demolished the building in 15 days, but originally planned for it to take 75 days,” a company spokesperson said. “This means we broke it down like we were tearing up paper.” And so, if Hell didn’t freeze over, Hell was at least razed to the ground. Nothing remains.

The television screen in the Fairmont’s chic coffee shop was playing a replay of last weekend’s Premier League match between Sheffield United and Bournemouth, but that was the only nod to football there was.

The new Ali Sami Yen, where United will run the gauntlet tonight as they try to avoid Champions League elimination against Galatasaray who beat them at Old Trafford last month, is located 25 minutes by taxi, outside the city center, in Levent area of ​​the vast metropolis.

A few years ago it was called the Turk Telekom Arena. Then it became the Nef Stadium. Now it is called Ramspark.

However, Galatasaray fans still call it the Ali Sami Yen, and the atmosphere inside when United walk away will be a test of nerve for Erik ten Hag’s team, just as it was for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side in 1993 .

Sometimes the atmosphere a fanbase generates does not survive the move to a new stadium, but there is no evidence that that has been the case with Galatasaray, who moved to their new stadium in 2011.

It will be another cauldron, especially as the home fans know victory will put them on the brink of qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition.

I was told that my hotel concierge was an avid Galatasaray supporter and he did not disappoint. Alper came out of his office with his orange and red club scarf above his head and showed me pictures of his son outside Rams Park, with his face painted in red and orange.

He looked surprised when I asked if the atmosphere was as good as the old Ali Sami Yen.

“It’s even better,” he said. ‘There were only 22,000 fans in the old stadium. Now there are 52,000. And the fans are still there hours early. It will be very loud for Manchester United.”

There were long queues of supporters outside the booths at the entrance to the Metro next to Rams Park yesterday afternoon as fans bought the last tickets for the United match and made a lively trade in Mauro Icardi replica shirts in the club shop. their bestseller.

Apparently the best way to experience the intensity and magic of a Galatasaray matchday is to join the fans on the day of the match in Nevizade, a small enclave of alleys near Taksim Square, full of bars and restaurants and screens showing football. the clock.

It is not far from where Galatasaray was founded in 1905 by Ali Sami Yen, who was a student at Galatasaray High School and who named the club after it. Amid the hustle and bustle and blaring horns of the city, the school’s elegant courtyard feels like a beacon of calm, a calm not echoed by the fans of the club from which the school takes its name.

One hell has disappeared, but another has taken its place. If United don’t want to bow out of the Champions League tonight, they will have to steel themselves against the wall of sound and fury that will greet them with the new Ali Sami Yen.