Genclerbirligi heading north

Four teams have won four on the trot this season... Besiktas, Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and .... Genclerbirligi!

Genclerbirligi 2 - 0 Bursaspor

Just Alex and myself at the 19 Mayis Stadium for what was a rip snorting match with attack after attack after attack, some great defensive work and just the tiniest amount of luck.

New signing Serdar Sahinler should have had us one nil up after just a few minutes when he just had the keeper to beat... but it didn't matter... Gencler continued to press forward and we had four or five good shots on goal and one or two instances when we should have scored. Even with the score at 0-0 at half time this looked like a day when we could rack up a big score. It was just really exciting football and joy to watch.

Second half and it finally came. Stancu sent a wonderful ball in to El Kabir, who quite frankly made a mess of it, and the ball somehow fell to our centre-back Ante Kulusic who finished it off. EDIT: Oops!!! Just looked at the video of the goal and El Kabir didn't bugger it up, he laid the ball perfectly to the feet of Ante.  

Just two minutes later we went 2-0 up and this time El Kabir didn't bugger around. EDIT: See above edit. Another new guy who had come on as a sub, Aydin Karabulut, sent a perfect ball in to El Kabir who had raced through the offside trap. He controlled it, shoots... GOAL!!!! As I have always maintained. The man is a genius... even if he does pretend to have been fouled just a tad too much.

This was the Genclerbirligi we have been wanting to see. In the first half of the season we would often dominate a match, go one-nil up and then sit back. Inevitably we would concede. With our new coach Ibrahim Uzulmez we are continuing to press, continuing to play attractive attacking football. The fans love it and so do the players.

This is great stuff by Gencler. Long may it continue.