Besiktas ruined their own Champions League dreams

Coming into Tuesday’s group-ending Champions League match against Dynamo Kyiv, Besiktas had a dream and a goal. With a win, they would advance to the Champions League knockout rounds, and even a draw could do the job for them depending on the outcome of the group’s other match between Benfica and Napoli. Getting a positive outcome in Ukraine was going to be a tough challenge, but the dream was there for Besiktas, and it was attainable.

Then the match started, and 30 minutes later those dreams were ashes.

Besiktas looked very much like they’d allowed the pressure of the occasion to get to them, playing unorganized and unsteady football that Dynamo were able to ruthlessly exploit, time and time again. The Ukranians scored early, just nine minutes in, and instead of using that as an impetus to solidify themselves and respond, Besiktas only grew more and more scattered. When Dynamo scored again on 30 minutes, everything fell apart for Besiktas.

Now, what happened to create that second goal is admittedly harsh and unfair to Besiktas. Defender Andreas Beck was trying to shield the ball away from Derlis Gonzalez at the edge of the penalty area, and the Dynamo attacker appeared to barge him in the back. As Beck went down and crossed into the penalty box, their legs got tangled up and both players went down in a heap — and referee Craig Thomson awarded Dynamo a penalty and showed Beck a red card for a last-man foul. Replays showed that decision to be, at the very best, a questionable one, and Dynamo’s conversion of the penalty and Besiktas’ reduction to 10 men for the last hour of the game left the result in little doubt.

That said, Besiktas weren’t entirely innocent in that situation. Yes, the penalty itself was harsh, but their midfielders and defenders had already been whistled for numerous rash and reckless fouls, with midfielder Oguzhan Özyakup getting booked 10 minutes earlier for a foul that some referees would have considered sending him off for. So they were already walking a tightrope, and if the referee had any question in his mind at all over what happened in the foul, the Turkish side had long run out of any benefit of the doubt.

They responded equally poorly to going down two goals, and it wasn’t long before they were down 3-0, and then 4-0 thanks to a staggeringly poor own goal just before half time. While Besiktas shouldn’t have been a man down for those goals, it’s also hard to look at how they played before going down a man and how they responded to that misfortune and argue that they deserved for the outcome to be much different than it was.

Simply put, Besiktas shot themselves in the foot, and they did it repeatedly. The match ended at 6-0, and Besiktas ended with nine men when Vincent Aboubakar picked up a second yellow card before an hour had gone by, having earned his first in the wake of Beck’s sending-off. And really, it looked like they knew it too, with Besiktas goalkeeper Fabricio so frustrated at halftime that he was in tears.

You really have to feel for Besiktas, who had so much to play for in this match. But they did not respond well to the pressure at all, and their own mistakes, their own poor decisions, doomed them to failure. This is going to be a tough one for them to move on from, but they’re going to need to move on quickly if they’re going to be able to perform in the Europa League and chase the Turkish Super Lig title. Let’s just hope they learn their lessons from this one.