Frustratingly freezing football

It was a frustrating evening freezing Ankara last night. Gencler must have had something like 70 percent of the possesion but only on a few occassions did they really look like converting that into goals.

Genclerbirligi 1 - 1 Samsunspor

Wrapped up in our Artic gear Little Oz Kanka and myself headed off to the 19 Mayis full of hope. Genclerbirligi have had a great run of late and their style of play has been fantastic to watch. Until Wednesday night that is.

After being joined by Oguz and not too many other fans, Gencler started off in great fashion and had the ball in the back of the net after just two minutes. Problem was a foul had been called. I didn't see it but as there isn't much complaining happening on the Gencler forums I guess it must have been the right decision.

It was unlucky though. I'm not sure who was doing the heading, but the first header bounced back off the upright and the second was sent in. A brief cheer from us until we realised the ref had blown his whistle.

Then it was... ergh. boring, boring stuff. For some reason Azofeifa wasn't in the starting line up and it showed. Without a decent midfielder to direct traffic all Gencler seemed to do with the massive amount of time we had on the ball was to pass horizontally all night. We had a few chances to score but they were either blown or saved. All very frustrating. One of our key defenders Aykut then managed to get himself injured and had to be replaced just 30 minutes into the game.

Then in the 40th-odd minute disaster struck.

A Samsun player seemed to get away from his defender and bang, a shot from distance that our keeper Ramazan had no chance to stop as it hit the post and went in.

Arggh. Gencler piled on the pressure though and the reward came just a few minutes later when Hursut sent in a cross which found the head of a Samsun player and into the back of the net.

Half-time and I was still pretty sure we would win it but Gencler played without much imagination in the second half. We might have been unlucky on a couple of occassions but this was not the Gencler of the last few weeks. We need Azofeifa back in the midfield... or at least someone who knows how to direct traffic.