ANKARAGUCU – CUP DREAM STILL ALIVE !!

 

 

Greetings Kankas and Kankies.

 

Ankaragucu kept their hopes of reaching The Turkish Cup Final alive last night and travel to Istanbul on 7 May for the 2^nd Leg of the semi final with still all to play for.   With so much at stake, it would be unwise to write off Ankaragucu’s chances after their never-say-die performance last night   !

 

Unlucky with VAR, hitting the woodwork and poor finishing, Ankaragucu should have taken at least one goal to Istanbul.    The one crumb of comfort is that they start all square and now it is purely in their own hands.   Play like they did last night and the final is within reach, but of course, without spurning their opportunities in the final 3^rd   !!

 

ANKARAGUCU           0                     Besiktas              0

 

Team – Bahadir, Atakan, Radakovic, Mujakic, Kitsiou, Tolga, Alexis, Morutan, Efkan, Bassogog and Ali Sowe

 

Substitutes – Macheda, Pedrinho, Ali Kaan, Kazimcan and Tasos

 

Ankaragucu started brightly and opened the scoring after 15 minutes, or so we all thought, when excellent play by Bassogog on the left and his well aimed pass to Ali Sowe at the far post allowed him to stroke the ball in.    However, the referee was called to the dreaded VAR and he indicated that there had been an offside in the build-up.     From the replay, it was a ‘hairline decision’ and, to be honest, I wasn’t totally convinced   !!

 

To their credit, Ankaragucu continued to press forward and another chance was lost 10 minutes later when a Besiktas defensive blunder was seized upon by Ali Sowe who drove into the box, and with one-on-one with the goalkeeper, blasted the ball over the bar when a cool head would have brought the opening goal   !

 

10 minutes later and another chance was missed when Tolga’s fierce shot from just inside the box was unfortunate to hit the bar and out.

 

It was mostly all Ankaragucu in the 1^st half and they could consider themselves desperately unlucky to go in all square at the break   !

 

It was more of the same in the 2^nd half with Bahadir having only one save to make when he punched the ball clear from a corner.

 

With 15 minutes to go Ankaragucu conjured up the miss of the match which was really unforgiveable   !!     The Besiktas goalkeeper parried a fierce shot straight to the unmarked Macheda who with the goal at his mercy, headed the ball downwards and the rebound sailed over the bar.   No doubt Macheda will have nightmares for some time about this glaring faux pas   !!!

 

Sadly, Morutan was stretchered off near the end when he suddenly pulled-up when jumping for the ball.    It is to be hoped that it is not as serious as it looked.

 

So, the onus of Ankaragucu’s tactics for the 2^nd leg must be quite straight forward, ie, adopt a ‘home match’ mind-set and attack for 90 plus minutes like they did last night.   They must shrug off the idea that they are underdogs    !!!

 

For now, the impetus swings back to league action for a crucial match in Rize on Sunday in which they must take at least one point.

 

As always, watch this space for the outcome.

 

All the best from Eski Kanka Jim