two-nil up after 25-odd minutes. in the bag surely. but no, gencler managed to give away a goal in stoppage time and it all ended up equal. total silence from the fans and the sivas supporters went wild. extremely disappointing. oh well, that's football.
genclerbirligi 3 - 3 sivasspor
just me at the beer bus but met up with oguz and ertank outside the stadium. it was about this moment that i realised i left my season ticket at home. luckily orcan got onto the phone and found me one, thus saving me 10 lira. as we waited for the ticket to show up a roar came from inside the stadium. gencler had scored in the first minute.
i was later told it was yasin who cut in from the left and took a shot. one or two minutes in and 1-0 up. still outside the stadium and apparently we had another good chance which azo managed to miss.
finally inside and all the play was gencler and it was no surprise when we scored another in the 25th-something minute. azofeifa had a freekick from a fair distance and sent it onto herve tum, for yet another headed goal for tum.
it was a beautiful day, the sun was out and the gencler fans turned out in force and with two goals in the bag everything was looking good.
a few minutes later though and a sivas player was fouled in the box. the penalty was given, probably correctly, and sivas converted it. still, plenty of time left and we were looking much better than sivas when the half-time whistle went.
second half and we again were playing the better football but mistakes started to creep in. a few from us and quite a few from the referee. sivas had started to attack and at times our players were falling asleep. the equaliser for sivas came in the 56th. silly defence.
then the referee started to have his shocker. sivas were hitting out and whilst he would occasionally give a foul it was pretty clear which side his bread was buttered on.
despite the ref we managed to go ahead once more after a bit of a goal mouth scramble. we were playing so much better than sivas and most of the crowd were looking for another, especially after the referee had no choice in giving a sivas player a second yellow for a vicious tackle on hursut.
the referee started to really annoy us fans but still gencler attacked. then yasin was sent through by our goalkeeper ramazan only to be clearly fouled one out from the keeper just this much outside the box. a clear red card and sivas were down to nine men and a goal behind.
then disaster as gencler turned off. into injury time and our defence went to sleep. we just couldn't clear the ball from outside our half. sivas had shot after shot and then after a goalmouth scramble the ball went in. of course, the referee had completely missed a foul on us just 30 seconds before the goal.
just a point. gencler threw the other two away. this was a match we should have won. now for two extremely difficult weeks; against fener and then galatasaray - both away.
