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This game represents everything that Champion League is. Because of the matches like this, football is the most beautiful thing in the world. In this game, we could see totally different situations, where one team was down and the other was so close to victory but in the end, it was totally different. Besiktas came back from three goals behind and Benfica managed to lose almost certain 3 points.
It looked like Besiktas was under too much pressure and that he had burned in his own desire to win. Right from the start, you could see that they are not concentrated on the game. Benfica punished that pretty mercilessly. They were destroying Besiktas all over the pitch. Their fans who are the loudest in Europe were like a bunch of old people who are watching a theatrical show without a sound at one moment. In the third minute, Benfica had an excellent chance to gain the lead, when Eliseu made the shot from the edge of the box and hit the left post.
In the 25th minute of the game, Salvio received the ball on the right side of the pitch. He headed the box and passed the ball to Semedo who fired a rocket with his left foot from some 25 meters from a little bit right to the middle of the box, and the ball hit the crossbar deflecting into the net. This is possibly the goal of the night, with an extraordinary shot. This is something we don’t have the chance to see often.
Six minutes later an interesting situation occurred in front of the Besiktas goal. Near the outline from the right side, a free kick was given to Benfica. The ball was centered high toward Mitroglu who was in the goalkeeper area, and he took the header, the ball hit the crossbar, deflecting back to him, and again he hit the crossbar with a header, deflecting further to Salvio who takes a shot from a couple of feet away but the ball is still deflecting and finally Fejsa run on to it from some 10 meters, smashed the ball and that is a total knockout for the home team. 0:3 Besiktas -Benfica. It is a disaster for the Turkish team, their hope was so ruthlessly crushed by the Portuguese team. The first half ended, and who would think that Besiktas has the strength to come back?
Especially when the second half started in the same way when Mitroglu missed the chance which was promising. And in the 59th minute, finally, the home team showed some signs of life. Andreas Beck sent a cross ball toward Cenk Tosun, who was in the box, on the left side, and he acrobatically sent the ball into the opposite low corner of Ederson’s goal. Fans woke up, and Besiktas tried to pressure Benfica’s midfield players, but it wasn’t very successful. Then in the 76th minute, after some twenty minutes of torture, Lindelof handled the ball in the box, and a penalty was shown for the Besiktas.
