Familiar Scene: Fenerbahce, Bursa End 1-1

Familiar Scene: Fenerbahce, Bursa End 1-1
By Nathan L. Redd

Fenerbahce followed up their monumental win over Inter Milan with a draw in Bursa on Sunday. The Fenerbahce offense was once again stifled by a stingy defense, allowing few opportunities for Fenerbahce to score.

Bursa's packed house gave great momentum to the home side, but neither team could find the back of the net early on. Nearly a third of the way into the game, Fenerbahce had yet to take a shot at all, much less a shot on goal. Bursa had fired five shots in, but tested Volkan Demirel only once. Both teams went into the half scoreless.

Zico again went with Deivid de Souza at the top as a starter, with Alex de Souza providing offensive help. Mateja Kezman missed the game, and Zico also added Gokcek Wederson in the midfield after giving him a start last week against Inter. Tumer Metin, Stephen Appiah, and Serdar Kulbilge all missed the game due to injuries.

Shortly after the break, Bursaspor forward Herve Tum put the home side up 1-0. A beautiful pass to Tum couldn't be defended by Edu Dracena and the Cameroon star's perfectly-placed header went to the top of the net just past the diving Volkan Demirel. Down by a goal, the Canaries pushed forward to try to equalize and eight minutes later, they tied it up. Semih Senturk took advantage of his starting opportunity on a beautiful long pass. Venezuelan goalkeeper Renny Vega came too far out to try to stop the surging Canaries, and Senturk took advantage by putting a beautiful shot past Vega to tie the game at 1-1. Bursaspor manager Bulent Korkmaz argued that Senturk was offsides but the referees disagreed and let the goal stand.

Bursaspor went to a tight defensive scheme after Senturk's goal, allowing Fenerbahce few opportunities to take the lead. Deivid had a good opportunity shortly before the end of regulation, but his long-range shot flew just high over the goal. In the 61st minute, Zico brought Gokhan Gonul in for Edu Dracena to refresh the defense and replaced Deniz Baris with Colin Kazim-Richards in hopes of generating more offense. Zico's final substitution came four minutes before the end of regulation when he replaced Wederson with Ugur Boral. The substitutions didn't result in another goal, however, and the game ended 1-1.

After leaving Bursa with only one point, Fenerbahce finds themselves in the rare position of eighth place in the Turkcell Super Lig. After six games, the Canaries have mustered only nine points. Bursaspor currently sits in eleventh place with six points through six games. Fenerbahce is a full seven points behind first place Galatasaray and five points behind second-place Besiktas. Fener will next play host to visiting Ankaragucu next weekend at Sukru Saracoglu. Ankaragucu finds themselves in fifth place with eleven points following a 1-0 defeat of Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyespor over the weekend.

After the game, Zico expressed his displeasure with the referee's performance. He told the club website "I find it really negative that the referees do not extend the games the way they should. Today the game has been stopped for several times, yet the referee has only added 3 minutes of stoppage time."

Zico went on to say "We should work on how to strike when the opponent starts to have a pressure over us. We have to learn how to dominate the game. You cannot compare the Inter match with the Bursaspor match. They are totally different. After the European games we always suffer from losses. We are not concerned about the point difference in the league, we only care about our football style and performance."

(photo courtesy of Hurriyet)