Sunday, March 31, 2013

Ankaragucu goes down the rabbit hole: Tavsanlı Linyitspor 2 Ankaragucu 0









Bayram, Volkan, Bilal, Kaan, Timur,
Mehmet, Serkan, Enes, Gürkan, Aytaç, and Orhan 

went to Tavsanli to go rabbit hunting but the hunters became the hunted, and I'm afraid we are the ones who got stuffed by their line up of 

Metin Erol
Hasan Yasar, Ferhat Culcuoglu, Mehmet Besler, 
Murat Yılmaz, Murat Ozavcı, Bilal Ozdemir, Mesut Saray,
Akeem Oriyomi Agbetu, Oktay Pop, and Sakib Aytac, as well as the subs, in particular, Abdi Aktas.

The match started well enough. The weather was beautiful and sunny and 33 degrees, perfect footballing weather. Both the Tavsanli and AG fans were out in numbers and in good voice, and it  was pretty much an even contest up until the 45th minute when Mesut backheeled a ball to Ferhat and with the AG defenders giving him ample time and space he launched a shot from outside the box that had Bayram diving to his right but grasping at air. 

It wasn't long before Facebook was lighting up with AG fans condemning Bayram. However had the defense closed in on Ferhat more quickly, he probably wouldn't have been able to get the shot off. And really why had we not scored by that point? There had been numerous opportunities that our boys had just not taken advantage of. Plenty of blame to go around. Unfortunately while Mustafa Kaplan apologized to the fans for the performance in the post-match interview, the players Teoman, who at one point blew a chance where he was one-on-one with the keeper Metin, and Enes Kubatli, who had started off with a bang but had quickly fizzled out, blamed it on fate and destiny. 

Now this is one of the things that drives me nuts about Turkey sometimes. No, it was not fate or destiny, you guys did not take advantage of the chances you had, and there were plenty. Just say "we tried hard but we fell short, and we're sorry." Take some responsibility. 

And was this not exactly the same case as last week? Let's recall what Bellshill Kanka wrote in his assessment of last week's match against Adana.

As i mentioned in last weekends match report, Ankaragucu were the better team for 44 minutes. They even had a glorious chance in the first minute to take the lead, but like to (sic) many times this season they missed an excellent opportunity. Adana scored on the stroke of half time and from there on dominated the match.
Pretty similar. Kaplan despite the great job he has done overall, has to make sure that we stop losing for the same reasons week in and week out. 


In any case, the team came out looking fairly sharp after the halftime break, and the match proceeded much as it had in the first half, with both teams getting plenty of opportunities but with neither of them really able to capitalize on them. 

Much as Nadeem had predicted, Agabetu was incredibly quick and dangerous, but it wasn't until the 87th minute when Agabetu, after countless prior attempts, was really able to penetrate into the box from the left. With a cut back, he put the ball in the path of the  pot bellied veteran Abdi Aktaş (aka The Old Wolf) who put it past Bayram and into the net. A very happy moment for The Old Wolf, who had come on about twenty minutes earlier, and his teammates, but a death knell for Ankaragucu. 

And that is pretty much this week's story. Although perhaps I should mention that one of our players got hit by an explosive device, that the announcers were calling a sound bomb, thrown from our own tribune. "What is wrong with some of our fans," I have to ask myself from time to time. 

At the 73rd minute mark there was a whole cluster of these devices going off and the match had to be stopped. This did not make the locals too happy, and by the end of the match they were calling our fans sons of bitches, and, to be fair, we did not behave ourselves well. It is not the people of Tavsanlı responsible for the mess we are in. Show a little class guys. I am not advocating violence, but if you really must throw something, throw it at the people really responsible for where we are now--you know who they are.






14 comments:

  1. Great report and nice headline from Battle Damaged Kanka Damon.

    No surprises in the scoreline. Tavsanli are no whipping-boys, having made it to the play-offs last season. All credit to them for staying in the mix to avoid relegation.

    As for Ankaragucu, the game is up.

    All we can hope for now is that we (the loyal supporters) can still make it to our final home league match against Denizli and bid them farewell into Divvy 2. However, I'm holding my breath that the TFF don't slap on another stadium ban after today's stupidity !

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  2. spot on damon with your report. The players have to be applauded for their commitment during these troubled times. But every game we have missed simple chances as well as conceding schoolboy goals.

    It will be interesting to see how next season goes. Will the players still be here or will we lose a host of players again ?

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  3. Interesting report, thanks.
    All hope appears to have drained now it seems.

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  4. Yeah, Burra, we have pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea of being in the second league, which, of course, means third division here in Turkey. Painful to watch our team suffer like this.

    As for the players, Nadeem, as you well know, I am behind them all the way. They are not the culprits in this misadventure, but they should take responsibility for what happens during the matches. When you are one on one with the keeper and you try going through him instead of around or over, what the hell do you expect to happen, especially as Metin had demonstrated himself to be quite capable by that point in the match?

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  5. agreed damon, some of the chances we have missed this season your average fan could have scored. Same when it comes to marking your man in the box or saving a weak shot. These are all basics.

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  6. Just saw the highlights. The incident where the fans threw the sound bomb at mehmet tasci and the tavansli player was disgusting. Our fans are a credit to the club, but they need to distance themselves from this sort of thing.

    As for Bayram, oh dear son, two terrible goals to concede, but as damon said, your defenders and strikers didnt help you out

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  7. Just posted the highlights.

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  8. Anonymous12:47 am

    Fairly damning footage both on and off the pitch.Another stadium ban of some decription coming up....

    Dublin Neil.

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  9. Thanks for posting the footage BD.

    Can't understand the mentality of those clowns who throw those dangerous fire crackers. I notice that they were going into Protokol too. Therefore, as Neil says, we can expect another stadium ban, and ...... probably a ban at away matches too !

    As for the present, Ankaragucu is now 12 points behind the 4th bottom team and all hope has been extinguished.

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  10. That game definately summed up the season ! My heart sank when those two goals went in. Missed chances and soft goals, hope the boys and fans can regroup for the next fixtures, surely cant get worse !

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  11. The worst part of the game was the sound bomb hitting mehmet tasci and the tavsanli player. They could have been blinded or deafened

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  12. I agree Nadeem, and it came from our fans aswell ! After that im not to sure there will be any fans at the last game !

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  13. We will find out tuesday or wednesday ante, but i expect another stadium ban :-(

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  14. Philly Kanka4:08 pm

    Sad to see the state of affairs from this side of the pond.

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