fulham were defeated 3-0 by a strong fenerbahce side at a very hot stade joseph-moynat in thonon-les-bains on wednesday afternoon.
the turkish side went into the break with a 2-0 lead after goals from giuliano and hassan ali.
despite a more experienced side playing the last 25 minutes for fulham, the opposition grabbed a third when ozan tufan’s cross took everyone by surprise when it nestled in the back of the net.
slaviša jokanović made eight changes to the team that faced reading the previous saturday, with only marek rodak, luca de la torre and neeskens kebano, who was captain for the day, remaining in the starting xı.
fenerbahce went for a strong team to test the fulham youngsters, with the likes of roman neustadter, martin skrtel and mauricio ısla in their line-up.
fulham showed their intent after just seven minutes when moritz jenz picked out steven sessegnon down the right and he jinked his way into the box before unleashing a shot which just deflected wide for a corner.
aatif chahechouhe had a good chance to open the scoring for fenerbahce after fulham were dispossesed following a goal-kick. he cut in from the left but his right-footed shot dragged just wide of rodak’s far post on 22 minutes.
giuliano opened the scoring in the 28th minute when he beat the fulham defence to ısla’s cross as his foot guided the ball over rodak from close-range.
hassan ali was booked in the 34th minute after he brought down mattias kait on the edge of the opposition box, fulham failed to beat the wall with the resulting free-kick.
the turkish side doubled their lead three minutes before the break when aatif’s touch took him away from the onrushing steven sessegnon and ali latched onto his pass and slotted his shot into the bottom right corner of the goal.
there were no changes at the break as the fulham youngsters pressed to cut back the opposition’s lead but it was fenebahce who had the first real chance of the second-half when, eight minutes in, alper potuk was through on goal only to be denied by rodak.
aatif was again involved in the action when he was booked for taking out kebano who had spun away from him on 62 minutes.
fulham then rang the changes in the 65th minute as marcus bettinelli, cyrus christie, denis odoi, tom cairney, aboubakar kamara, rui fonte and ryan sessegnon came on for rodak, steven sessegnon, marcelo djalo, ıbrahima cisse, kebano, kait and jon dagur thorsteinsson.
ten minutes later fenerbahce extended their lead to three goals when tufan’s cross dipped under the crossbar from a tight angle.
jokanovic then immediately made three more changes with stefan johansen, maxime le marchand and tyrese francois replacing de la torre, jenz and matt o’riley.
fulham were unable to score themselves, with back-up ‘keeper carlos kameni rushing out at every opportunity to scupper the londoner’s hopes.
