i read in haber turk newspaper this morning that gencler's coach ralf zumdick would almost certainly be sacked today if he didn't pull off a win. whilst the money is still on him being replaced some time soon by a turkish manager, today's performance must at least buy him a week or two... maybe more.
thanks to the clocks going back last night i got an extra hour to sleep off the effects of saturday night's haloween party at the red lion club and so i was in tip top shape for my first efes of the day at the beer bus. myself and little oz kanka were joined by flying dutchman kanka carlo, oguz and a newcomer by the name of david, toronto kanka david from now on.
the last time toronto kanka went to a footy match was when he was about 10 years-old. the match was between toronto and the new york cosmos, with pele playing for the cosmos. "don't expect much pele-like magic today," i warned him. we were all to be surprised.
genclerbirligi 2 - 0 manisaspor
first couple of minutes and manisa looked like the better team. didn't take too long for us to get our first chance though when jedinak gave zec a perfect pass which should have been put away. zec didn't look like he was expecting it though and the ball went straight to the keeper.
zec was in the action again just a few minutes later smashing a ball played through by ... er... not sure, but the ball went straight to the keeper.
it was all looking great at this stage with hursut in particular dazzling the crowd and making complete fools of the manisa defenders. almost every time he got the ball he would play the sort of showboating footy that we love and which defenders hate. his skills eventually pissed off the manisa players so much that they started to try and foul him out of the game. something which the referee, who was completely useless today and quite possibly had money on the number of cards he was going to hand out to us, pretty much ignored.
hursut kept us on our feet in the 34th beating a defender with style and sending a ball through in the box that was almost certainly going to go out. ayhan had other ideas though, ran through and sent it back to the back of the box where serkan was lieing in wait. bang. goal. gencler 1 - 0 manisa.
more attacks from us. more fouls (but bugger all cards) by manisa. this was clearly our day and manisa decided to play dirty. half-time though and all was good in the world.
second-half and it was more of the same. we attacked, they fouled us, and whenever we committed a foul out came the yellow card. it was the typical pathetic refereeing that we have come to expect in the super lig.
hursut played a part in the second goal as well when he passed to zec who took a wonderful shot from outside the box. wow. it was nice stuff and the crowd started shouting for three. genclerbirligi 2 - 0.
more attacks, more chances for gencler but we couldn't make them stick. manisa had just a couple of decent attacks all match. perhaps if they had been lucky they might have accidently got one, but overall gencler were by far the better team today.
all up, bloody good stuff and long may it continue.
oh yes, an old friend came on for manisa sometime in the second half, and he was looking bigger than ever. yes, former gencler forward kahe is now at manisa, and he is clearly enjoying the food there. for the record, he did bugger all.
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