Turkish Football And The Dawn of a New Era
With all of the end of season excitement going on currently, the...
The match started at a high tempo with Fenerbahçe nearly snatching the lead on the break in the opening minutes, but Jermain Lens couldn’t find a teammate with his layback pass before he went foot first in to goalkeeper Fabri for which a foul was called.
It was a gritty start with a lot of nasty fouls by the visitors, but the referee kept his cards in his pocket. Beşiktaş took control of the game after that first little scare and pushed Fenerbahçe back on their own half, dominating all aspects of the game; corners, shots on target, possession, etc. but the chances that were created were left unconverted with headers from Anderson Talisca and Oguzhan going off target.
After a foul from Robin Van Persie on Dusko Tosic in the 41st minute the Serbian received a direct red card for his reaction to the Dutchman’s behavior, Tosic made a slight headbutting movement towards Van Persie and was shown the direct red. Van Persie went down very easily and the replay showed that he had first planted his knee in Tosic’s side after which he also gave him an elbow but the referee missed that position so the Dutch striker was spared a red card himself.
The red card would prove the turning point in the match, whereas Beşiktaş had 65% ball possession, all corners and shots versus Fenerbahçe’s no shots or corners in the first half, the visitors took control of the match and exploited their man more situation.
Following a counter in the 71st minute Jermain Lens squared it at the far post towards Van Persie who tapped in the 0-1, as the replay would show Lens was offside in the initial position and Van Persie was also on the edge of offside, but yet again no call from either referee or linesman.
After the goal Beşiktaş tried to fight their way back in to the match but couldn’t find the equalizer despite several good attacks. Beşiktaş suffer their first defeat at Vodafone Arena since it’s inauguration against Bursaspor last season and their first home defeat in all competitions in 31 games.
Stadium: Vodafone Arena
Official: Ali Palabiyik
Beşiktaş XI: Fabricio Ramirez; Gökhan Gönul – Marcelo Guedes – Dusko Tosic – Adriano Correia; Atiba Hutchinson – Oğuzhan Özyakup (86′ Tolgay Arslan) – Anderson Talisca (51′ Matej Mitrovic); Ricardo Quaresma – Cenk Tosun – Ryan Babel
Reserves: Tolga Zengin, Matej Mitrovic, Andreas Beck, Gökhan İnler, Tolgay Arslan, Aras Özbiliz, Necip Uysal
Head coach: Şenol Güneş
Fenerbahçe XI: Volkan Demirel; Şener Özbayraklı – Simon Kjaer – Martin Skrtel – Hasan Ali Kaldırım; Alper Potuk (72′ Ozan Tufan) – Josef De Souza – Mehmet Topal; Moussa Sow – Robin Van Persie (89′ Aatif Chahechouhe) – Jermain Lens
Reserves: Fabiano Riberio, Roman Neustadter, İsmail Köybaşı, Aatif Chahechouhe, Oleksandr Karavayev, Ozan Tufan, Fernandao
Head coach: Dick Advocaat
Goals: Robin Van Persie (71′)
Yellow cards: Robin Van Persie (44′) Şener Özbayraklı (45′), Atiba Hutchinson (67′), Ozan Tufan (90′), Adriano Correia (90′), Aras Özbiliz (90′)
Red card: Dusko Tosic (41′)