Trabzon: Trabzonspor suffered a surprise home defeat against Hungarian side Ferencv¡ros, losing 1-0 in the first leg of their Europa League playoff tie at the Babara Park Stadium on Tuesday evening. This result complicates the Turkish team’s task ahead of the return leg next Thursday at the Hungarian side’s stadium, as they now need to win by more than one goal to advance to the next round.
According to National Iraqi News Agency, the home side started strongly, with Egyptian star Mohamed Salah in the lineup. Salah performed well and posed a constant threat to the Hungarian goal, but luck was not on his side as he was unable to score his first goal for the Turkish club. Salah came close to opening the scoring early in the eighth minute when he received a long pass from Cameroonian goalkeeper Andr© Onana, finding himself one-on-one with the keeper. However, Onana made a brilliant save, and the ball rebounded off Salah and went out of play.
Against the run of play, Ferencv¡ros scored the only goal of the match in the 17th minute through Norwegian Kristoffer Zakariasen, who capitalized on a cross from Oliver Nagy, heading it powerfully past goalkeeper Andr© Onana. Trabzonspor almost equalized in the 38th minute following a counter-attack that began with a long pass from Onana to Salah, who controlled the ball and passed it to Umut Nayir, but the latter’s powerful shot went over the Ferencv¡ros goal.
In the second half, Trabzonspor continued to dominate possession and intensified their attacking pressure in search of an equalizer. The crossbar denied Nigerian Paul Onuachu’s header before the ball struck the goalkeeper and rebounded to Mohamed Salah, who tried to head it in, but the defense cleared the ball. In the 70th minute, Cape Verdean player Wagner Pena received a brilliant pass from Salah inside the penalty area and fired a powerful shot towards goal, but the Ferencv¡ros goalkeeper made a superb save, turning the ball behind for a corner.
In the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time, the referee showed a straight red card to Trabzonspor’s Nigerian defender, Chibuike Nwayo, for a dangerous tackle on a Ferencv¡ros player. At the Tpras Stadium in Istanbul, Besiktas secured a comfortable 3-0 victory over their Lithuanian visitors, €š¬…¡¬‚¬¦¡¬‚¬Å¡¬¦¡¬¦½algiris, putting them in a strong position to advance to the group stage of the continental competition ahead of the return leg in Kaunas, Lithuania, next week. The home side finished the first half with a 2-0 lead, with South Korean Hyun-Gyu Oh opening the scoring in the sixth minute with a header from a corner kick taken by Ridvan Yilmaz, before Panamanian Amir Murillo added the second goal in the 12th minute.
In the second half, Orkun K¶k§ sealed the win for Besiktas with a third goal in the 60th minute from a penalty kick awarded after Vykentas Slivka fouled Hyun-Gyu Oh inside the penalty area.