Greetings Kankas
and Kankies.
Nobody can accuse
the Ankaragucu players of a lack of effort when they lost their Cup Semi final
last night on a 2-3 aggregate scoreline.
Ankaragucu made
the perfect start by scoring the early opening goal to try and unsettle the
opposition, but they were up against a slick and skilful Basaksehir team who
looked in determined mood throughout the match.
Yes, it was a
missed opportunity to compete in their first final for about 30 years, however,
on the other hand, it will allow the team to fully focus on their remaining 3
league fixtures and to put fears of relegation to bed !!
ANKARAGUCU 2 Basaksehir 2
Team – Gokhan,
Kevin, Arda, Mujakic, Hasan Ali, Diack, Andrej, Kitsiou, Beridze, Milson and
Ali Sowe
Substitutes –
Emre, Zadid, Gokhan Tore and Tasos
The first goal
was set-up by Kitsiou with a defence splitting pass in the centre just inside
the box and was perfectly weighted for the incoming Ali on the right to sweep
the ball inside the left post.
Basak’s response
was to send in wave after wave of attacks, but the Ankaragucu defence held firm
and Gokhan saved the goal bound shots that came his way.
Basak did score
in time added on in the 1st half, but it was correctly ruled out for
offside.
Into the 2nd
half and Basak continued where they left off as they searched for the
equaliser, which arrived after 15 minutes.
It was a classic
goal with a patient build-up with the ball being sprayed from left to right,
and after a 10-plus passing movement, the ball was crossed from the right touch
line to the far post where Serdar had ghosted-in to head in for perhaps goal of
the match.
Basak was back
in front on aggregate and Ankaragucu stepped up the pace to attempt to even the
aggregate score up.
Diack almost
found the back of the net near the final whistle after a cock-up between the
Basak goalkeeper and a defender had gifted him the ball, but his shot was just
past the post.
However, the
goal did come in the 88th minute after an Ankaragucu attack down the
right. The ball was crossed to the
back post where it was headed back into the near post area and Tasos was on
hand to stroke the ball in to even up the aggregate score and send the match
into extra time.
Then, 5 minutes
into extra time .......... and disaster
!! Mujakic had a rush of
blood to the head and received a second yellow and therefore a RED card !!!
A needless display of petulance by Mujakic to protest the award of a
throw-in near the centre line and he obviously used some ‘forbidden’ words
which resulted in the referee reaching for the cards immediately !!!
Unforgivable by Mujakic and it probably caused the match to sway back in
Basak’s favour.
The result of
the sending off was to bring on Atakan to bolster the defence at the expense of
Ankaragucu’s main striker, Ali. A
tactic to obviously shut-up-shop and run the match down for the penalty
shoot-out.
Unfortunately,
the tactic backfired as Basak grabbed the all important goal near the end when
Keny headed in from a cross on the right.
A sad end to a
spirited performance by the Ankaragucu players and surely a lesson learned for
the future concerning dissent towards the referee and the type of language
used !!!
It is now time
for Ankaragucu to put this match into the history books and look to addressing
more pressing matters, ie, Super League survival !!!
As I said
earlier, there are 3 matches left for Ankaragucu to salvage their season and
that begins on Tuesday when Champions-in-waiting, Galatasaray, will be the
visitors.
Setting up in a
defensive formation is out of the question, so I expect Ankaragucu to go all
out in attacking mode to win points and keep the pressure firmly on the 5 other
teams in the relegation zone.
As always, watch
this space for the outcome.
All the best
from Eski Kanka Jim
No comments:
Post a Comment