is it some sort of weird turkish mathematical law that states that as the number of genclerbirligi supporters decreases the number of kankas at genclerbirligi matches increases?
this was hardly a top of the table clash but we managed to get 11 people together for pre-match drinks at the chopin. at the time we only had 10 season tickets between us but it was great to see new kankas michal and alper (kanka names to be assigned at a later date) buying season tickets at the gate. not to mention niels who finally made it to a match despite having bought his jersey months ago.
i was actually a bit surprised to see so many bars open in kizilay considering that we are in the middle of ramadan at the moment. but the bar staff were happy to see us and the efes certainly went down well.
as for the football... argh
genclerbirligi 0-2 manisa
we clearly have a decent team. in the first half we were all over manisa but where oh where is our goal set up abilities.
we were totally in control during the first half but at no time did we ever get a shot on goal. mehmet cakir came closest but his shot was from so far away that i reckon i could have stopped it with one hand without spilling a drop from my beer in the other.
bloody pathetic. i seriously have to doubt our play... or our positioning, or something or other. we have some damn good players, mehmet nas, mehmet cakir and nick carle, for a start. but why was carle being played so far back in defence? the man knows how to run and get past players but he was playing so deep. okan ozturk up front is not enough... argh.
0-0 at half time and us gencler fans were depressed. nothing on goal, and not even the sort of play that looked like scoring a goal... and remember this was a half where we totally dominated play.
second half and the brother-in-law of ahmet (from the turkish soccer site), giray bulak, obviously had something positive to say to his manisa players as they came out looking a damn lot better than they did in the first half. we saw from manisa some nice build up moves, pass after pass which were eventually cleared by our defenders. genclerbirligi on the other hand didn't really seem to have a clue.
that was until about the 50th minute mark when carle sent a lovely through ball down the left, it was sent in by someone and was almost a goal. one of our best moves of the match so far and our coach, fuat capa, obviously thought that as carle was playing too well we ought to take him off!
"what the fuck", said the guy sitting next to me. well, he said something in turkish like that. but the fact is he was damn right. carle was one of the few gencler players who looked like they might break the deadlock. sure he was playing too deep in defence, i assume because capa told him to, but bloody hell.......
then, just a few minutes later mehmet cakir was taken off... oh god. what the hell was capa smoking today? perhaps it is time that this blog tries to get an interview with him. (see below for our curse)
still 0-0, but not for long. manisa managed to put a few good passes together and bang 0-1. a few minutes later and manisa managed to put a few good passes together and bang 0-2.
on came our new brazillian signing kahe and while he didn't look brilliant tonight he did look better up front than okan. kahe managed to blow one good chance, but really it was just half a chance. got to give the bloke some time. he looks like he can hold the ball up well and i'm slightly hopeful for the future.
dear oh dear oh dear.
i'm not even going to go into the idiocy of putting our match on at the same time as muslims are supposed to be breaking their ramadan fast. this single fact meant that many fans didn't show up to the match. stupid fools. it was such an embarrassing turnout tonight that at one stage when one of the genclerbirligi amigos was trying to get a chant going that he actually mentioned me by name to shame the rest of the turks into singing. i don't know, perhaps the crowd were just really hungry, unlike genclerbirligi.
****
the following was written a few months ago and is background to the curse:
the curse of "the round ball in ankara"
this is becoming scary. this blog is now responsible for the departure from ankara teams of three coaches.
victim 1: vlado bozinoski bozinoski was appointed coach of ankaragucu at the beginning of the season. being an aussie we thought we should get an interview. after numerous attempts i finally managed to get his mobile number and was about to ring him when he was sacked.
victim 2: mesut bakkal lanky kanka jorg organised a football match between the german/austrian embassy football team fc stiefel and the genclerbirligi management. gencler coach bakkal was going to be there so we could interview him for the blog. within minutes of lanky kanka confirming that the interview was on, bakkal resigned as coach.
victim 3: ersun yanal yanal appointed coach and what with the kanka bbq on this saturday we thought this would be a great opportunity to invite him along and interview him for the blog. yanal resigned two days ago. today i received confirmation from lanky kanka that yanal had actually said "yes" and was going to come to the bbq.
victim 4: fuat capa ???????
edit: just a day after this post fuat capa resigned as genclerbirligi coach. the curse of "the round ball in ankara" strikes again.
