ANKARAGUCU v KASIMPASA - MATCH REPORT

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

The following is the promised match report from Battle Damaged Kanka Damon......

Depression was not the only emotion that was felt Saturday at 19 May Stadium in chilly Ankara; Merthan's hand had the blue and yellow seeing red.

Although Kasımpaşa is the lowest ranked team in the league, given the way Gücü has been playing lately, I knew enough before the match to brace myself for anything. In turned out that "anything" was worse than I had been hoping for--but not as bad as it might have been.

The first half of the match our boys clearly did not have their hearts in it. The play was lacklustre at best with El-Yasa, Emre, Burak, Yasın, and Bebbe looking particularly bad. Mountaineering Kanka Robbie pointed out that one heading tactic used over and over again by Bebbe was actually never effective and resulted a hundred percent of the time in merely handing possession of the ball to our opponent's keeper. Mountaineering Kankie Judy, being less technically inclined, merely said that El-Yasa was playing as if he had been up late drinking the night before. (Eski Kanka's comment...... Ankaragucu players are model professionals and therefore abstain from drinking alcohol !!!).

Then at around the 16 minute mark, Faruk of Kasımpasa's free kick from the right found teammate Merthan coming in along the left side of the penalty box. Merthan then tucked the ball neatly into the right corner of the goal as our keeper Serkan was already moving to the left.

The question is what part of his body did Merthan use to do the tucking. I did not notice anything odd about the goal while watching the match from our position in Marathon, but the Gücü players immediately declared it to be a hand ball. Judging by some of the comments on Ankaragücü fansites, supporters of the team are majorly pissssssed offfff with the ref. Selçuk Dereli and his failure to notice the handling. Upon inspection of the video, it appears likely that it was indeed a hand ball, but I would prefer to leave the call to our very own Eski Kanka Jim who, owing to his former career as a referee, has much more experience with hand balls than do I (If you would like to judge for yourself, check out the video replay at Ankaragücülerin Sesi: http://www.ankaragucluyuz.biz/haberdetay.asp?id=563) . Regardless of whether the laws of the game were infringed or not, KP were up 0-1.

At the 22nd and the 30th minute marks Jaba attempted to equalize, but failed. A mere two minutes after Jaba's second attempt, Kasımpaşa's Özgür launched a hard shot off a pass from Yekta making it 0-2 going into half-time.

I was bracing myself for more of the same in the second half, but Alpine Kanka Wolfgang assured us that we would score three goals. During half-time I discussed strategy with both Alpine Kanka Wolfgang and Mountaineering Kanka Robbie while drinking tea graciously provided by Alpine Kanka. Wolfgang was convinced that Gücü needed to bring the ball up along the sides instead of only bringing it up the middle. Robbie felt that the major problem was that there was a gap between the forwards and the mid-field that was being effectively filled up by Kasımpaşa players.

I don't know what Hakan Kutlu said to the guys during half-time, but with the beginning of the second half, the team had rectified both of these problems, and it took a mere two minutes for Murat Erdoğan to capitalize on a loose ball in front of the Kasımpaşa goal to make the score 1-2. About 12 minutes later Mustafa took a shot which was punched away by Kasımpaşa keeper Tolga, and 16 minutes into the half Murat crossed the ball from the left into the penalty area where a waiting Jaba was able to head it in. The match was now tied up at 2-2. The big question was now whether Alpine Kanka's prediction would come true.

Let me save you the suspense (oh, wait there is no suspense. Jim already told you the score in yesterday's post.): Alpine Kanka had to be satisfied with his prediction being two-thirds correct. Yes, after being shown about twenty minutes of absolutely beautiful football by Ankaragücü, the level of play sunk back down, and despite two shots on goal by Jaba we had to be satisfied with a tie and one piddly little point. Given Beşiktaş's win over our brothers in Bursa, that puts us six points behind BJK going into our match this coming wknd. at the Eagle's nest. Let's wish our team the best of luck in Istanbul. Maybe we can pull a Liverpool on them.


Thanks Damon for another excellent report, even if it was all negative stuff from Ankaragucu for 70 minutes of the match !

Concerning the alledged `handball`, I have to repeat that, unlike cricket or the funny shaped ball games, the referee in footie doesn't have the luxury of a video replay facility. Therefore, for this reason, all the laws of the game are couched in his favour by stating....... `it will be a blah blah blah, if in the referee's opinion blah blah blah occurred`. I accept that it is difficult for the players and the punters like us to accept this, but the referee can only see incidents on the field of play from one angle and then he makes his call in a split second ! Also, if the Linesman happens to be on the other side of the field then he can only go on what he actually sees and not what the crowd or players are baying for !

As for Saturday's referee, Selcuk Dereli, I know him personally and can assure you all that as well as being an honest man, he is also one of Turkey's best referees on the FIFA list. I have a feeling that we shall be seeing more of him in high profile YooRo club and country matches in the future.

Sunday's match against Sekiztrash can't come quick enough for me. I remain optimistic in the belief that Ankaragucu always seem to raise their game for the big ones. Bring it on !

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim