Gencler scrape through in Cizre

A bit scary in the end. We looked good in the first half but blew a few chances in the second. In the end we were a bit lucky.

Cizrespor 1 - 2 Genclerbirligi

The red is the province of Sirnak. Cizre
is right near the point of  where the
Syrian and Iraqi borders meet Turkey.  

What a great occasion for the amateurs of Cizrespor. They have had to win a whole heap of matches to get this far and finally they get to take on a Super Lig team in the group stages of the Turkish Cup; a televised match as well. We might be used to it, but for the Cizrespor players and fans this was it. So, the Turkish Football Federation banned fans from going to the match. It was for some sort of fan violence in the recent past.

Cizre is a Kurdish town near the Turkish borders with Syria and Iraq. It is one of places that Noah, he of flood fame, was supposedly buried. The tomb outside a mosque in the town seems to show that Noah was about 8-foot tall. It is also a place which has seen its fair share of clashes over the years. Anyway. Around half of the tiny stadium seemed to back onto a security zone, I counted two TOMAs and one Akrep. At the end of the pitch and at bits to the sides there were a few apartment buildings. As you can see from the picture, a perfect place to watch the football from, especially today which was sunny and fairly warm.

No need for a Passolig here.

Time for the national anthem and despite the fact that there were no fans in the stadium the producer at A Spor had to turn the sound off as the fans outside completely drowned out the music with whistling. Half-way through the anthem they turned the sound back on and then quickly off again, as the whistling had only gotten louder.

Where were we? Football.

We fielded our youth team but it still had some punch what with Mervan, Irfan Kahveci, Ferhat and others. The only foreigner on the field was a fellow called Moussa Traore, playing up front for Cizrespor.

Kick-off and things didn't seem too difficult on the synthetic pitch. Cizre were trying to play fast but we controlled it well. It didn't take too long, about five minutes, before we went ahead when Irfan Kahveci slotted a nice pass to Berat. Berat spun around and slipped it past the keeper.

"This could become embarrassing," I thought to myself.

Then Traore got a shot forcing Ferhat to save. The crowd were making lots of noise now and the equaliser came a minute later with a nice one-two from Hakan to Traore to Hakan and in. 1-1.

One minute later and we were ahead again thanks to another brilliant cross from Kahveci straight onto the head of Artun. 1-2. I'm telling you, watch this Irfan Kahveci... he is going places.

Pre-match photo from @murathaliloglu2 

Another minute later and Mervan missed a sitter.

In the second half we missed two sitters, Cizre missed one. It was all a bit disappointing from the Gencler youth. They seemed to fall off a bit and got a bit sloppy. Cizre, meanwhile, were pressing hard and giving their all.

In the end we came away with the points. Cizre can hold their heads high. I hope they finish the group in second spot.