Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 8:02 PM• Daniel Cabot Kerkdijk • Last update: 20:05

Besiktas took an advance on the national title in Turkey on Sunday. The team of trainer Sergen Yalçin won 2-4 against low flyer Erzurum BB and thus benefited from the missteps of the entire competition. Fenerbahçe did not get further than a 1-1 draw at Yeni Malatyaspor earlier, and that was also the final score of the home game of Galatasaray with Fatih Karagümrük. Besiktas now has seven and eight points more than Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray respectively.

Besiktas needed nine minutes to take the lead. Atiba Hutchinson approached the penalty area and threatened to shoot, but he dropped and watched Cyle Larin put the ball nicely into the right intersection behind goalkeeper Jakub Szumski: 0-1. The advantageous margin of the visitors did not last long: seven minutes later Leo Schwechlen escaped the attention of his opponents from the right after a corner by Emrah Bassan and he was able to head the leather diagonally into the far corner at the height of the first post.

A big blunder by Szumski led to Besiktas’ 1-2 in the 26th minute. Oguzhan Özyakup’s shot towards the short corner was certainly tenable, but the ball disappeared through the scrambling hands of the closing post. A misstep by Ersin Destanoglu on the other side of the field ensured that the game was balanced again just before half-time. The Besiktas goalkeeper wanted to press the ball against his chest after a shot by Bassan from a distance, but the doctrine disappeared into the goal through his chest: 2-2.

Rachid Ghezzal made the 2-3 in a brilliant way after more than an hour of play. He could not be stopped on the right, penetrated somewhat more and then shot the leather from about seventeen meters with the left nicely behind Szumski. Two substitutes determined the final score. Gökhan Töre was taught by Georges N’Koudou, was unable to get rid of the ball in the penalty area and then hit diagonally in the right corner: 2-4.