Uphill Climb Left for Genclerbirligi

The following article appeared on my friend Oz Kanka's blog, The Round Ball in Ankara (http://ankarafootball.blogspot.com/). Oz is a Genclerbirligi supporter and did an interesting recap of yesterday's game and the upcoming Super Lig game this weekend. Please visit Oz's blog - he has a great site. You can also read the article in its entirety here: http://ankarafootball.blogspot.com/2007/01/uphill-climb-left-for-genclerbirligi.html#links

Here is Oz's article:

Uphill climb left for Genclerbirligi

As you may know my computer crashed a week or so ago and I couldn't sort it out despite getting a new hard drive installed. For this reason I invited computer genius Flying Dutchman Carlo over to my place to help me out and it just so happened that a footy game was on the TV as well. While Carlo did his magic, Genclerbirligi couldn't, going down to Fenerbahce in an empty stadium away from home in the first leg of the Turkish Cup quarter finals.

Fenerbahce 2 - Genclerbirligi 1

Genclerbirligi started off well enough controlling the ball but as usual never really finding a chance for a shot on goal. Fener had the first real chance of the match and then Gencler had one or two. It was all midfield stuff and Gencler should really learn to keep the ball on the ground for those short passes.

There was one strange incident where Okan Ozturk was going up for a header somewhere in midfield. He got a slight whack in the head by a bum (that was not an insult but referred to the fact he got hit by a Fenerbahce player's bottom). He went down, it was impossible to stay up, and the referee blew his whistle within milliseconds for the medical people to come on, even though Okan was not even pretending to be hurt. What annoyed me was that Okan then decided to walk off with the medics and thus wasn't up front for the subsequent free kick. If you aren't injured Okan... stay on the bloody pitch.

Then came disaster in the last minute of the first half. Fener had a freekick. The ball is kicked, referee blows whistle, ball goes into back of net, Fener players rush the referee, ref gives Traore a yellow card, ref gives Fener a penalty, goal to Fener.

Anyone else notice how the above events are out of sequence. Flying Dutchman Kanka Carlo certainly did. If the referee thought the offence deserved a penalty he should have given it straight away, not after two minutes of shouting from the Fener players. No wonder in the Turkish game players complain to the ref so much... it works!

Leaving that aside there was no way that it should have been a penalty. Sure Traore was wrestling around with a Fener attacker who was also wrestling around with Traore. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Second half and Fenerbahce started bringing on some of the players they had been resting, namely Tuncay, David (or however he spells his name) and Kezman but it was Gencler who scored after a lovely pass across the goal at an angle found Mehmet Cakir who slotted it home.

1-1 at this stage and it seemed as if both teams were happy with the result as we got to see some pretty boring footy.

The Gencler defence had clearly gone to sleep when Fenerbahce wrapped it up in the last minute or so.

In what seemed like slow motion the ball was crossed into the box where neither Mehmet Nas nor the other defender (the bloke with a corn row-style haircut) were marking their man. The result, a simple header in which our keeper Jesus had no chance of getting to.

Time and again we saw why we shouldn't have sold Risp.

A mountain to climb for the return match in a few weeks time but we get to see it all again on Friday when it is Fenerbahce versus Genclerbirligi in the (Your Company's Name Here) Super Lig.