We Conceded the First Goal From Our Own Mistake in Türkiye

Fenerbahçe coach İsmail Kartal said his technical staff "lost" the match after his team suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at Gençlerbirliği in their opening game of the Turkish Süper Lig season. Speaking at a post-match press conference, Kartal acknowledged the difficulty of the contest, saying: "The effort in high-difficulty matches is visible. We conceded the first goal from our own mistake.

Okay, that can happen. We needed to play better football to score a second or third goal, but we couldn't produce that. We conceded the second goal when we were caught off guard.

"The opponent's appetite grew and they started fighting more. That's natural and normal. We lost as a technical staff.

It was an unexpected defeat. We all need to learn lessons from this, he added. Kartal also apologized to the fans: "We gave the ball away and conceded a goal.

In the second goal, someone got between the defenders and scored. We didn't expect anything like this. We are sorry.

We apologize to our fans. The experienced coach expressed confidence in his players ahead of a crucial Champions League match in two days' time: "We trust all our players. You can't play matches every two or three days with the same players.

We rotated a few players. If you can't give chances to other players and rest some in football, then how far can you go with the same players?