Fenerbahçe 3-1 Bursaspor
A difficult win against Bursaspor ensured we increased our lead ahead of Beþiktaþ to six points at the top of the league. Goals came from Nobre and Tuncay`s double.
Suspensions and injuries forced Christoph Daum to make significant changes to the side, which saw the return of Sergei Rebrov to the starting line up after a long period of time. Mahmut Hanefi played as a left back while Fatih Akyel took the suspended Fabio Luciano`s centre back position.
The game started with two teams locking eachother to a midfield battle and not allowing any balls into the box. The first real chance came with Rebrov`s pacey cross in the 16th minute which Pierre van Hooijdonk headed to far corner only to see a good save by Serdar to tip the ball away.
Three minutes later van Hooijdonk tried his luck from a free kick far away, again to be denied by Serdar`s save.
But the goal the packed Þükrü Saraçoðlu Stadium was expecting came in the 23rd minute, after Ümit Özat showed great vision to play an excellent through pass to Tuncay, who struck low first time in the area to score the first of the game.
With half an hour gone, we nearly gifted a goal to Bursaspor who constantly tried deep long balls to Sertan. Another one of these passes fell in front of Sertan, with Fatih chasing and Volkan coming out of his goal. Poor communicaiton led to Fatih heading back for Volkan, but he had already come out and watched ball sail over his head. Tomas intervened to clear the danger.
Bursaspor`s equaliser came unexpectedly with minutes to the break. Tayfun struck hard outside the area but the ball fell to Okan Yýlmaz who directed the ball past Volkan.
"We will rock you" was the song as the teams entered the pitch again for the second half, and the fans were in full song to urge our side towards the three points which would give us such an advantage.
However for most of the half the team and supporters were to experience a lot of frustration as Bursaspor seemed contempt with one point in their battle to stay in the top flight. With more of the possession came more unforced errors from all sections of the team.
Ümit tried long distance shots but narrowly missed the target on two occassions and Tuncay struck the post with a venomous half volley released from his left foot in the 70th minute. Van Hooijdonk also saw a volley go across the goal and out for a goal kick.
Soon after Daum made a double substitution, taking off Mahmut for Petkov and Aurelio for Semih. The forwardline was hence strengthened while Petkov offered a new dimension on the left wing.
Petkov`s introduction paid off, as he put a dangerous low ball into the goal mouth which got deflected in the goal after Nobre`s slight touch in the 85th minute, 2-1.
Three minutes later our lead was extended thanks to a slight deflection onto Tuncay`s long range shot and our 52,000 strong fans were sent into the comfort zone.
Tuncay`s over excitable goal celebrations involving him lifting the corner flag out of its place got him a booking, which will suspend him from next week`s Adanaspor trip.
We face bottom club Adanaspor away next week where we`ll be looking to maintain our new-found six point lead at the top of the Turkish Süper Lig.
FENERBAHÇE: Volkan, Ali Güneþ, Fatih, Tomas, Mahmut Hanefi (78` Semih), Rebrov (90+2` Servet), Aurelio (78` Petkov), Ümit, Tuncay, Nobre, Pierre van Hooijdonk
BURSASPOR: Serdar (46` Vintila), Ömer, Erman, Miu Ilie, Serkan, Tamer (54` Junior), Tayfun, Mustafa, Frasineanu, Sertan, Okan (81` Egemen)
Goals: 23`, 88` Tuncay Þanlý, 85` Marcio Nobre (Fenerbahçe), 44` Okan Yýlmaz (Bursaspor)
Source: Fenerbahçe.org
