Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Ankaragücü 2 - 0 Tuzlaspor -- Merry Christmas!


Ankaragücü enter the mid-season break in second place, and everything to play for in the back stretch of the season.

A chilly day (see Chris's post yesterday for a more in-depth look at 90 minutes standing in the cold) would have been matched by the emotional coldness of standing alone on the terraces, but five minutes into the match Emir and the Pegasus boys came over and joined me.

Nothing else much happened in the first half - both sides played pretty scrappy football, with Ankaragücü looking the slightly stronger team.

The second half was very different: from the off, Ankaragücü dominated. It wasn't through some demonstration of tactical genius, sadly: Tuzlaspor just realised they were in danger and became extremely defensive - and Ankaragücü fans and players were noticeably chipper despite not ringing up any goals.

The Pegasus crew, meanwhile, had distributed themselves to the far reaches of the stadium. "This is for good luck," Emir told me. "We change seats until Ankaragücü score."

From there on in, the boys in sarı-lacivert managed to string together many consecutive attacks, which were all either offside, over the bar, deflected off a defender or beaten by a last-minute tackle. A counter-attack by Tuzla in the 72nd minute nearly soured things, with a desperate goal-mouth struggle ending in a Tuzla player skying the ball into the crowd.

A few minutes later, Ankara took advantage of a lapse in the defending to put a beautiful ball over to Emrah Bozkurt in a one-on-one with the keeper. His shot was placed at a tight angle, and there was a gasp in the stands for the millisecond before the ball bounced back, confirming it had hit the net.

From then on, Tuzlaspor tried, falteringly, to go into all-out attack, but Ankaragücü remained dominant. The referee even gave them a last chance for a Christmas miracle by refusing to stop the game, even after a lot of extra time.

The extra minutes didn't do them any good: Ankaragücü sealed their victory with a great goal in maybe minute seven of extra time which - thanks to the twin miracles of technology and Ankaragücü fanaticism - we can bring you here:


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the readers of this blog!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the report John and well done for braving the elements and giving us some Christmas Cheer.

    Still all to play for in the 2nd half of the league even if we don't bring in any new and experienced faces.

    As Nadeem has said, this is the best chance Ankaragucu will have of going up into the PTT League with the standard of teams below normal. The players have done the badge proud and we can't ask any more than that as long as they continue to give 100%.

    Aaaankaaaarrraaaagoooojoooo !!!!!

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  2. I like that second goal...

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  3. Thanks for the report John

    I managed to catch most of the game thanks to Periscope. Not the best performance but we won and thats the main thing to keep up pressure on Manisa

    Lets now see what the January transfer window brings

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