Osimhen Answers the Noise With a Brace as Galatasaray Are Held by Debutants Corum
Victor Osimhen needed one moment more than Galatasaray did on Friday night, and he supplied it twice. Twice he put his side ahead, and twice Corum FK found a way back — until the closing minute finally settled things at 2-2.
The Turkish Super Lig's four-time defending champions opened their 2026-27 season at home, against a newly promoted side playing its first-ever top-flight match. It was not the routine opening-day win the champions would have wanted, but Osimhen made sure it wasn't a defeat either.
By the time the full ninety-plus minutes were done, both Osimhen's finishing and Corum's nerve had been thoroughly tested — and neither side left Friday night with the afternoon it wanted.
Osimhen breaks the deadlock
The opener took 53 minutes to arrive. Osimhen finished from a tight angle after a pass from Lucas Torreira, giving Galatasaray exactly the platform a home crowd expects on the season's first matchday.
For a team accustomed to winning Super Lig titles four years running, a 1-0 lead against newly promoted opposition should have been the beginning of a comfortable afternoon. Corum had other ideas, and what followed turned a straightforward opening day into one of the more dramatic season-openers in recent memory.
It was a composed finish under pressure, exactly the sort of moment a club pays a marquee signing to produce on an occasion like a season opener, with a new campaign and a demanding home crowd watching every touch.
Corum's stunning response
Corum's answer arrived fast and in two parts. Alexandros Kiziridis equalised with a long-range strike, and moments later Jesus Ramirez punished a Davinson Sanchez error to put the newly promoted visitors 2-1 up, Daily Post reported.
Kiziridis's goal carried its own significance beyond the scoreline: it was Corum's first-ever Super Lig goal, scored on the club's top-flight debut. A newly promoted side had gone from a historic first goal to a lead over the reigning champions inside a matter of minutes. Two goals in barely any time at all flipped the entire complexion of the match, turning a comfortable-looking afternoon for the champions into a genuine contest.
For a newly promoted side making its Super Lig debut, going 2-1 up against the reigning champions inside the opening hour was the kind of scoreline nobody outside Corum's own dressing room would have predicted before kickoff.
Ten men, still ahead
Corum's afternoon took another turn in the 70th minute when Kiziridis was sent off, leaving the visitors to defend their 2-1 lead with ten men for the final 20 minutes plus stoppage time.
Reduced numbers or not, Corum held firm deep into stoppage time, staring down an unlikely opening-day win over the champions. For a club playing its first-ever Super Lig fixture, holding a lead over the champions — even a man light — was already a result worth savouring.
Defending a lead with ten men against four-time champions, in front of a hostile away crowd, is exactly the kind of situation that separates a team that belongs in the top flight from one still finding its feet there.
Osimhen's late header salvages a point
Deep into stoppage time, with Corum still 2-1 up and ten men behind the ball, Osimhen rose to head in a Gabriel Sara corner in the 90th minute to make it 2-2, completing his brace and salvaging a point for the four-time defending champions, per Premium Times.
Osimhen's 90th-minute header, from a Gabriel Sara corner, turned a first defeat of the season into a share of the points.
It was the kind of finish that swings a scoreline and a mood at the same time — from a champions' opening-day defeat to newly promoted opposition, to a hard-fought draw built on Osimhen doing what he does best, twice in one afternoon.
Two goals from two very different situations — a tight-angle finish in open play, then a header from a set piece deep into stoppage time — summed up a player doing whatever the moment required of him.
A result with two very different afternoons inside it
Galatasaray leave matchday one with a draw, not the perfect start their status as reigning, four-time defending champions would suggest. But they also leave it with proof that Osimhen is already doing exactly what was asked of him: scoring at both of the afternoon's most important moments.
For Corum, a first-ever Super Lig campaign could not have opened with a bigger statement. A newly promoted side scored their first-ever top-flight goal, led the champions 2-1 with a man sent off, and still walked away with a point against opponents used to winning on the way to yet another title.
Both teams' stories are true at once. Galatasaray failed to win a match they led at home. Corum failed to hold a lead they built while down to ten men against the champions. Somewhere between those two disappointments sits a share of the points that neither side will be fully satisfied with.
How Osimhen felt about a share of the spoils after doing everything asked of him was covered by Legit.ng in the aftermath.
One brace, one bigger picture
Individually, Osimhen could hardly have done more without actually winning the match outright: two goals, including a stoppage-time header to prevent defeat. Collectively, Galatasaray's afternoon was a reminder that season openers against newly promoted sides are not the formality they can look like on paper.
Corum, for their part, showed exactly why they earned promotion in the first place — and gave the champions a considerably harder afternoon than a 2-2 scoreline against relegation-favourite opposition might suggest.
Season openers have a way of setting an early tone, fairly or not. For Galatasaray, the tone is that their title defence starts with a dropped result at home. For Corum, it's that they can compete with the best team in the country for long stretches of a match, even down to ten men.
Friday's finishing was Osimhen at his most essential — a match-winner-turned-rescuer, saving a game his team had no business needing rescuing. Galatasaray move on with a point. Corum move on with a first Super Lig goal, a first Super Lig red card, and a first Super Lig away point, all from the same afternoon.
