Turkish Football And The Dawn of a New Era
With all of the end of season excitement going on currently, the...
Beşiktaş have squandered a good position heading in to the second leg in Konya after giving away a one goal lead, which they had secured in the first half via Cenk Tosun.
Şenol Güneş did a lot of rotating for this game as he usually does for the cup games and benched several key players while others weren’t even in the squad. Tolgay Arslan was back in the match squad for the first time since his ACL injury over eight months ago.
Beşiktaş dominated the first half and had the match firmly under control, when Cenk Tosun scored just past the half hour mark nobody would have guessed that Konyaspor would be able to upset the Black Eagles as the visitors hadn’t shown the slightest bit of intention going forward.
And even when Rangelov came on at halftime, it did not seem as Konyaspor were going to secure a good position going in to the return leg. But after a 64th minute direct red card for Marcelo Guedes the match turned completely around.
Whereas Konyaspor had had only one shot in the first 65 minutes, after the red to Marcelo they immediatly scored their awarded freekick via the Bosnian Bajic. Boyko didn’t do to well to position himself as he positioned his wall in such a way that he could not see the ball coming properly, allowing Bajic to fool him in his blind spot.
The red card was really unfortunate aswell as the position should have been ruled offside before the actual foul was made. However the officials missed the offside and let play continue, Marcelo made slight contact with Rangelov and the result was a red card in his second official match for Beşiktaş. More importantly after Luiz Rhodolfo’s injury blow this past week in the league (out for six months) Beşiktaş will now miss Marcelo in this Sunday’s league fixture against Başakşehir, leaving only Alexis Delgado as a real central defender in the squad.
Konyaspor looked more dangerous after the red card but it didn’t really lead to any clear cut chances, Beşiktaş still managed to retain most of the possession but Konyaspor looked dangerous on the breaks this time around whereas in the first hour they really hadn’t shown any danger at all.
After a big save from Denys Boyko on a headed opportunity for Konyaspor, Necip cleared in to corner. On that resulting corner Denys Boyko came for the ball but missed it, the ball was brought back in front of goal although it hit the crossbar but the rebound was shot in to the empty net. Certainly a goal which can be credited to a mistake of the Eagles’ new goalkeeper. Konyaspor made their turn around complete in just 15 minutes.
Beşiktaş tried to do something back with only a good 10 minutes left on the clock but with the man more situation Konyaspor managed to close down most attacks without too much trouble, ultimately Andreas Beck needed to make two more good interceptions to even prevent a thir dgoal and the Black Eagles go in to the return needing to score atleast twice in Konya to secure qualifcation for the semi finals.
Due to the proceedings of the match Tolgay Arslan didn’t even manage to play his scheduled 10-15 minutes as Şenol Güneş decided not to put him in to this match give the situation with the red card and the scoreline.
It was a very odd game, where in our opponents seemed powerless for ~65 minutes, but then the red card turned around the game completely.
Stadium: Atatürk Olimpiyat
Officials: Tolga Özkalfa, Baki Tuncay Akkın, Serkan Gençerler, Serkan Tokat (4. official)
Beşiktaş: Boyko, Serdar, Marcelo, Alexis, Tosic, Necip, Veli (67′ Beck), Kerim (80′ Olcay), Sosa (61′ Oğuzhan), Quaresma, Cenk
Reserves: Günay, Beck, Oğuzhan, Tolgay, Olcay, Mustafa, Gomez
Head coach: Şenol Güneş
T. Konyaspor: Kaya, Mehmet, Selim, Skubic, Vukovic, Volkan, Amir (62′ Ali Çamdali), Selçuk (46′ Rangelov), Mbamba, Sissoko (82′ Traore), Bajic
Reserves: Serkan, Ali T., Abdülkerim, Ömer, Ali Ç., Traore, Rangelov
Head coach: Aykut Kocaman
Goals: Cenk (31′), Bajic (65′), Volkan (79′)
Yellow cards: Sosa (43′), Mbamba (45′), Rangelov (84′)
Red card: Marcelo (64′)