Beşiktaş hits back from three behind to hold Benfica

Beşiktaş hit back from three goals behind at halftime, scoring twice in the last 10 minutes, to force a 3-3 draw with Benfica in an enthralling Champions League game on Nov. 23.

The Portuguese champion raced to a 3-0 lead in 31 minutes, helped by a sublime effort from Nelson Semedo and a bizarre goal by Ljubomir Fejsa who scored after the ball hit the woodwork three times.

Cenk Tosun pulled Beşiktaş back into the game with a scissors kick, Ricardo Quaresma converted a penalty seven minutes from time and Vincent Aboubakar, like Quaresma a former player for Benfica’s archrival Porto, equalized in the 89th minute.

The draw left Benfica with eight points from five games in Group B and Beşiktaş on seven while Napoli, which was held to a goalless draw at home by Dynamo Kiev, has eight.

Benfica, which had needed a win to qualify with a game to spare, was left kicking itself again, having conceded a late equalizer in a 1-1 draw at home to the same opponent earlier in the group.

Eliseu had already hit the post for Benfica and Aboubaker seen a goal chalked off for offside for Beşiktaş when the visitors went ahead.

Eduardo Salvio slipped the ball to Goncalo Guedes and the 19-year-old held off a defender, rounded Fabricio and slipped the ball into the net from a tight angle.

Semedo doubled the lead with a spectacular effort in the 25th minute, collecting the ball, turning and sending a curling left-foot shot past Fabricio from the edge the area.

That was followed by a bizarre third when Kostas Mitroglou headed against the crossbar, then headed the rebound against the bar before Salvio sent a third attempt against the post and Fejsa finally turned the ball in.

Despite the mauling, the Beşiktaş players went to the center circle at halftime to applaud their fans whose faith was repaid in a dramatic second half.

Unbeaten at home since February, a Beşiktaş comeback was in the air from the moment that Tosun met Andreas Beck’s cross with a perfectly-executed scissors kick in the 58th minute.

The Turkish champion pulled another back when Nilsson Lindelof handled and Portugal forward Quaresma sent his penalty into the far corner.

Ederson made a superb save to deny Aboubakar but was powerless in the next attack when the ball again found the Cameroon forward who scored from close range.

Football Match Tickets in Istanbul Turkey

Football Match Tickets in Istanbul Turkey
Galatasaray Besiktas Fenerbahce Kasımpasa Istanbul Basaksehirspor

Football, hugely popular in Turkey, was brought there in the second half of the 19th century when English tobacco and cotton traders visited the main harbour towns of the Ottoman Empire.
In the beginning they played football with each other, and later taught the game to their Turkish neighbours.The first football match on Turkish grounds was played in Salonika in 1875. After that, football was played in Istanbul and İzmir. But during this time, football was only played between English and Greek people. This was also the case in the first Turkish league, named the Istanbul Football League.But some young Turkish men, who loved this game at once, began to play football in open fields without observing any rules.
These young players formed the first Turkish team, playing their first match on 26 October, 1901, against a Greek team. Then the club Beşiktas, founded in 1903, became the first Turkish club to enter the Istanbul League.

When the clubs Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray also entered this league, the real period of Turkish football began.

A very strong love for football widened to the whole nation. After this period football in Turkey started to develop very fast and treating football like a “national matter” continued until now.

Turkey has a big potential in footbal. There are 4,956 football clubs organized in Turkey, and a registered 4,775 professional and 136,823 amateur players with 233 women. 796 male and 20 female football referees are licensed by the TFF.

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