Besiktas thrashed Olympiakos that bowed out of Europe
Olympiakos was let down by its defense and its keeper and endured a bad exit from the Europa League suffering a 4-1 defeat at Besiktas on Thursday to get eliminated with a 5-2 aggregate score.
The impression of the Reds’ performance becomes even more negative when considering that the Turkish champion played for almost 55 minutes with 10 men due to a straight red card shown to Vincent Aboubakar.
In most of its away games in Europe this season Olympiakos performed better than at home, but this game was not down to that rule.
Besiktas did not sit back to absorb the Greeks’ pressure, although it was the visitors who had to score after the 1-1 draw in Piraeus. The Turks scored twice in the first 22 minutes, first through Aboubakar and then via Ryan Babel.
Just as it seemed the game was slipping away from Olympiakos, the Piraeus team bounced back with a spectacular volley by Tarik Elyounoussi that hit the back of the net, and gained a man’s advantage on the 39th when Aboubakar hit Panayiotis Retsos.
With the score at 2-1 the Greeks needed one more goal to go through. They pushed up front in the second half and even hit the goal frame with Costas Fortounis, but in one of its counters Babel scored his second goal and Besiktas’s third on the 75th.
The final score was the work of substitute Cenk Tosun, who added insult to the Reds’ injury six minutes from the end.
