Gencler are finally defeated at home

It had to happen some day and Saturday was it as Genclerbirligi lost at home for the first time this season. If only we had a half-decent away record we would be pushing for a top place.

Genclerbirligi 0 - 1 Galatasaray

Flying Dutchman, Spine, Robin and myself started the day at the Beer Bus where the conversation drifted into, according to Flying Dutchman Kanka, the decline and fall of the Dutch civilization... according to Spine the conversation was about evolution of languages.

We possibly talked a bit about football as well but then it was time to pay up and get moving.

A good crowd at the 19 Mayis. The Galatasaray fans filled their area and spilled over into ours resulting in some handbags in the second half.

Galatasaray got off to the better start as Gencler tried out their radically positive 8-1-1 formation. It was all a bit frustrating as we had managed to get free a number of times but the midfielders refused to move up quickly. Our defence again was good with Galatasaray managing just a single shot for the first half.

Half-time and I was fairly happy. We had a few chances, Herve Tum really should have had us 1-0 up when he chested down a ball three metres out, swivelled, and failed to make any contact with the ball he had trapped so well. Much shaking of heads there.

But all up we were playing okay and probably had just shaved it over Cim Bom.

Second half and it was much the same. Azofeifa had a quiet match, as did Hursut. The second half and Galatasaray upped the tempo and managed to get a few shots on, with Ramazan needing to actually make some saves.

Then the killer when in the 70-something minute Eboue found himself in a perfect position and he gave it an almighty whoof and the Galatasaray fans went wild. It was at this point that the tension in the stands rose as various Galatasraray fans started getting pissed off with us. They were in our section for God's sake. If it was any other set of fans those Cim Bom supporters would've been legging it quick smart. One of the Gencler amigos calmed things down and we got back to concentrating on the match.

Gencler tried hard but they just couldn't manage to pull off an equaliser. Back to Kizilay and whilst it was disappointing to have lost I'm still fairly happy. In the past month we have played the top three Istanbul teams and have managed a win, a draw and a loss. Before the season I would have taken a single draw.