THE EAGLE ABROAD: Divine Protection

When the angels look after you, you don't get any harm from anything. Usually this happens not because you deserve this protection or anything but maybe it's simply your turn to be reminded that there are certain forces in nature deciding which team will advance and which team will close up the shop.

In this year's campaign, we have witnessed above mentioned abnormality quite often. I guess one of the obvious one was the last 25 seconds of the Dynamo Kiev match. Another one was the last minute of the Tel Aviv away game in which Q7 was touched by an angel. Last night's 2nd leg with Braga was also such a dramatic example in which all the nail biting situations stretched throughout the game, not so squeezed in a magical minute. Having said that one must be surely state that Braga was a much better team than us. No wonder they were one of the finalists of the very same competition last year.

We have seen the worst Beşiktaş performance of the whole season last night. From the coach, to the medical staff everyone simply had a very bad day. On a normal day, we should have lost the game 4-1 or 5-2, but losing only 1-0 had sufficed for us to go next round at the end with a 2-1 aggregated result.

Before the game, I mean way before during the day, the news of the resignation of all board members and the president found its way to the squad much faster than anything. In my opinion, this was the first leg of several reasons that have psychologically affected the players. Secondly, the squad came out with a formation that has no forward players at all!? Almeida, Pektemek, Edu, Holosko were all either benched or left out of the 18 player team sheet. This formation of 4-6-0 may have worked a week before -especially when our opponents were reduced to 10 men-, however it was very clear that it will be nightmare for all Beşiktaş fans within the first 5 minutes into the game, in which we have seen Beşiktaş pulled back so much so that the game was literally played completely within the Beşiktaş half. All season long we have seen that this team cannot be pulled back, and if you do, every opponent have scored a goal without a skip. Last examples were the away game in Sivas and home game against Belediye that we couldn't kept the ball a few minutes more away from our goal line.

Long expected goal came in 24th minute by the Brazilian Lima, who was one of the targets of Beşiktaş transfer committee, -or we shall say Mendez's agency- last summer. Then the only positive thing of the night happened; introduction of Almeida. This move have proved to be a working one as the team started to move forward a little bit more. We were still looking to the legs of Q7 whom may have produced a thing or two and a dangerous shot in second half but nothing more. Almeida was the lone cowboy trying to make something out of poor crosses most of the time and his efforts were not effective as well. On one occasion though, he should have scored when he was almost one on one with the keeper just before the end of first half.

The minutes never seemed like moving as we have probably counted every second of the game towards the end. When I saw Pierre Luigi Collina in the stands, I had a sense of relief, as I know that he is a bit of a good luck charm to Turkish clubs. Later on I have learned that he was observing the referee for future references. When Tanju got injured, the medical staff took so long to make a call and we have played 10 men for a few minutes as well. Cenk Gönen started to look like he was very unreliable between the posts towards the end.

I have strongly disagree with Carvalhal's last choice of substitution. Not only the timing was a disaster but also adding another defensive player in the last 3 or 4 minutes made the whole team just sit and wait without creating a counter threat at all. He should have introduced Pektemek at least 20 minutes prior to the end, so that we could have kept the ball away from our half, and maybe even scored a goal fishing the game right there and then. However, our defensive minded coach decided in a different way, and even though we have gotten the result barely and qualified for the last 16, I don't think this mentality will take us further into another step especially having seeded against Atletico Madrid, who was the champions of 2010 season in Europa League.

The only man standing was our German Chancellor candidate Fabian Ernst. He was literally everywhere pressing, defending, passing and had given his full capacity to the utmost point. Especially Necip's exit have added more responsibility to him and Braga squad got quite irritated by his presence. He got cautioned by the referee later on and he was tried to be pulled back in for an argument so many occasions. Unlike Fernandes, he did not fall into this trap and completed the whole 90 minutes of this thrill ride.

Now, within 48 hours, we will face the league leaders Galatasaray, whom will have been played nothing for 9 days prior to this fixture!? To be honest with you, I do not give a rat's ass if we would win or loose as long as I see our boys put their hearts out there just like the Fenerbahçe fixture couple of matches ago. To me European arena matters the most and this chaotic and unjust domestic league is simply became a hunch on our shoulders that is very hard to carry on. Don't get me wrong, this is not an excuse but it's just a statement for a lost of belief for the system of Turkish Soccer and those who control it.