Dean Saunders spent a year of his career at Galatasaray – and one particular incident has always stayed with him.
The Welsh striker left Aston Villa to join the Turkish club in 1995, linking up again with his former Liverpool boss Graeme Souness, in a squad that also contained American goalkeeper Brad Friedel.
Saunders discovered some notable cultural differences during his 12 months in the country, not least when he was asked to drink goat’s blood immediately before a match.
“We did once, for good luck,” the 59-year-old said during an exclusive interview for FourFourTwo magazine, speaking on behalf of Gem.Bet.
“I didn’t know at the time, but it’s a religious thing. If you look it up, years and years ago, it was something like: there were two men and one said, ‘I want to sacrifice your son, to see how loyal you are’. The other man brought his son, then the first guy said, ‘Right, now I know that you were prepared to do it, I’m not going to kill him – I’m going to kill a goat instead’. So, every year in Turkey, they’d cut a goat’s throat for good luck.
“Before a game, they brought this goat on with about a 12-inch knife and slit this goat’s throat in front of us. It was a bit of a shock. They passed a cup of blood down the line – we pretended to drink it, but the cup was warm and the blood was purple... I said to Brad Friedel ‘What’s going on?’”
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