ANKARAGUCU DIGS DEEP ..... BUT .....

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

It was another of those 'almost but not quite' matches last night. A great defensive display from the Ankaragucu Youth Team almost won a point against an impressive Bursa team.

However, the door was unlocked by Bursa late in the match to claim all 3 points.

There was no doubting Ankaragucu's commitment, but a momentary lapse was costly, especially allowing Pinto a free pot at goal.

Bursaspor 2 Ankaragucu 1

Team -

Bayram, Veli, Aydin, Umit, Ishak, Serkan, Bilal, Muhammed, Mert, Kaan and Atilla.

Substitues - Orhan, Mehmet and Volkan

Battle Damaged Kanka Damon (recently recovered from his illness I'm pleased to say) and I watched the match in The Chopin, or should I say ......... outside the Chopin. The place was crawling with Fener...spit...bahce and Galata....spit....saray 'supporters' who came out of the woodwork and reserved all the bloody tables inside the Pub. Grrrrrr .... Damon and I were, as you can imagine, not best pleased to put it mildly !!!

The match burst into life as early as the 4th minute when an Ankaragucu defender was caught in possession (fiddling and undecided what to do with the ball !!). The Bursa player took off, looked up, and sent an inviting cross in which was gratefully received by a Bursa attacker and ..... whack ! The ball hit the post and rebounded kindly to Pinto who was lurking unmarked and he tapped in for a sucker goal.

The Ankaragucu heads didn't go down and they were trying to play their way out of defence whenever possible and 6 minutes later the deserved equaliser arrived.

A free kick on the left, and a perfectly flighted ball into the danger area where Ishak ghosted in unmarked to head in with the Bursa defence caught napping.

Bursa continued to have the lion's share of possession and they looked very dangerous at times. However, Ankaragucu had Bayram in impressive form and he saved two goalbound shots before the half time whistle.

The 2nd half was fairly even with both teams on all out attack, but it's fair to say that the Ankaragucu defence was the busiest. There were a few panic moments when the ball was hoofed away from the danger area, but as I said before, they were trying to bring the ball out and set up attacking moves.

It's fair to say that as the match entered the final moments Damon and I were quite happy to settle for a point which arguably was a fair result. But .......... that man Pinto had other ideas, and with only 2 minutes of the match left to play he was on the end of a free kick to slot in the winner.

Rough justice on the Ankaragucu players who gave their all but Pinto showed exactly what a predatory striker should do, ie, score goals !!

If Ankaragucu play with the same commitment next weekend I have high hopes of a win against Antalyaspor.

Bellshill Kanka Nadeem mentioned in a previous post that the Stadium Ban had been lifted, so it seems as though we will attend. I will give details of match day and KO time here in the comments section when known.

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim