The Turkish media are not entirely negative after the 2-0 defeat of Besiktas against Ajax in the second group match of the Champions League. In Turkey, the disallowed goal by Kenan Karaman is often discussed, after a nudge against Jurriën Timber. At the same time, there are also positive sounds about Ajax and Dutch football.
“When I watched the match, something came to mind: at the end of 2019 Turkey was tenth and the Netherlands eleventh in the UEFA ranking. Today we have dropped to eighteenth place and the Netherlands is seventh,” writes Hurriyet. The newspaper cites that Turkey still won 4-2 against the Dutch in March, but lost 6-1 in September. In addition, PSV defeated Galatasaray twice. “Okay, of course it is impossible to compare our football culture with that of the Netherlands.”
Sneijder about rejected goal Besiktas: “I don’t think there is much going on here.”#AJABES #UCL pic.twitter.com/STZZuYYR4x
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“They can be favorites on any platform, including European and World Cups. But not so long ago, Turkish football seemed so close to the Netherlands. How is it possible that the distance is so great again?”, asks Hurriyet wonder. “Ajax is an almost perfect team. When they have the ball, it is not easy to take it back. But Ajax is not perfect, they also have handicaps. For example, we hoped that Besiktas could have tested 38-year-old goalkeeper Remko Pasveer with shots from a distance, but that didn’t work out.”
“Ajax is an institution, Turkish clubs should copy their policies,” added Fotomaç up. The Turkish media has a lot of understanding for the personnel problems at Besiktas, which had to miss no fewer than eleven players in Amsterdam. “Ajax dominated and controlled every aspect of the game. With their passing, every attack was dangerous. But if Batshuayi’s ball hadn’t hit the post in the first few minutes and the referee had approved Karaman’s goal, we might have been talking about completely different things.”
Karaman’s disallowed goal is passed by fanatic, Hurriyet and Fotomaç dismissed as ‘outrageous’. “Despite the fact that it was not possible for Besiktas, the 2-1 had made Ajax nervous. It was a typical shoulder push,” he wrote fanatic. Nihat Kahveci, former striker of Besiktas, Real Sociedad and Villarreal, goes one step further. “That goal would have counted anywhere in the world: on carpet, on sand, everywhere!”