i'd like to boast about how i predicted months and months ago that genclerbirligi would finish ninth. i could boast, of course, but it was always pretty obvious.
besiktas 1 - 1 genclerbirligi
the tff in their wisdom decided to put the final match of the season on at the same time as the english fa cup final. i don't give a damn about the fa cup but a few people at the red lion club did and so the super lig "game of the day" was relegated to the small screen with no sound.
a blessing really as the game in london seemed much more exciting.
but knowing that i had better write a blog post having been extremely lazy recently i sort of kept an eye on our match.
first up... bugger all people at the match. people always say that gencler have no fans but there were less people at the match on a wonderfully warm saturday than there are at gencler home matches in the middle of winter. e-billet is not working!
footy and... besiktas needed to win, and hope galatasaray lost, in order to get the champion's league automatic spot (fener aren't allowed in because they are cheats). so, what we got was some fairly determined footy from besiktas and they were clearly the dominating side for the first 30 minutes or so. having said that, gencler were trying ... unlike in recent weeks (???).
and it was besiktas who went ahead after a silly mistake from keeper ferhat who didn't clearly clear a ball. in the end in was an excellent header which sent besiktas ahead.
a few minutes later oktay was brought down in the box. one of the most obvious penalties ever... but no. play on said the idiot in the middle.
with things seemingly going besiktas' way it was mervan in the 56th who latched onto a pass from (someone) and scored a simple goal. wooohoooo
then the very dodgy penalty.
the ball was whacked straight into the shoulder of ante. as spine pointed out at the time, not even a non-armed man could have avoided it. so despite all our players complaining almeida stood up to take the penalty.
and.... ferhat saved it!!!
and that was about it for the rest of the match...
) 
