Chelsea crashed to their first defeat of the Roman Abramovich era in London on Wednesday as Turkish champions Beskitas ressurrected their own Champions League campaign with a shock 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge.
After a nine-match unbeaten run since the Russian oil tycoon began injecting his millions into west London, Chelsea’s attempts to graft £100-million of new talent on to an established squad finally came unstuck at the hands of Sergen Yalcin, whose two goals secured an unlikely victory for the Turks.
”When you make mistakes, you pay,” Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri said. ”After 2-0 we tried to do something but they closed the space very well.”
Chelsea’s embarrassment of riches was underlined at the start of the match by the sight of Damien Duff squeezing on to the bench alongside two England internationals, Joe Cole and Wayne Bridge, and last season’s first-choice strikers, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen.
By the time half an hour had elapsed, however, Chelsea were contemplating an evening dominated by a more regular form of embarrassment with poor defending helping to gift the visitors two goals from their first two forays upfield.
Mansiz was the architect of the first goal. A quick free-kick caught Chelsea’s back four and sent overlapping left-back Uzulmez Irahcame racing to the byline. His cross found Yalcin, whose shot beat Carlo Cudicini with the help of a deflection off John Terry.
Much worse was to follow for Cudicini five minutes later when Besiktas’s Colombian goalkeeper Oscar Cordoba punted a clearance deep into the Chelsea area.
First Marcel Desailly slipped then Cudicini contrived to miss the ball altogether, presenting the portly playmaker Yalcin with the straightforward task of hitting an empty net to claim his second goal of the night.
On the evidence of what had gone before, Chelsea could justifiably feel hard done by. But they could scarcely complain having spurned the chances generated by their crisp approach work in the opening stages.
The best of them fell to Juan Sebastian Veron, who completely miskicked after a fortunate rebound from an opponent’s legs left him with a clear sight of goal, 16 yards out.
Three minutes later Adrian Mutu’s reverse pass allowed Frank Lampard to spring the Turks’s offside trap but, after a poor first touch, the England midfielder was unable to finish.
Chelsea’s evening took another turn for the worse within a minute of the restart when William Gallas appeared to turn an ankle.
Having being forced to pull off the injured Celestine Babayaro early in the match and then introducing Duff and Hasselbaink in place of Hernan Crespo and Mutu at the break, Chelsea were forced to keep the French defender on the pitch and so were effectively reduced to 10 men.
Fortunately, Besiktas were soon playing with a man down thanks to the red card Mansiz received for what the Portuguese referee harshly judged to be his second piece of time-wasting of the night.
The Turkey striker, who had been booked for kicking the ball away on the stroke of half-time, was dismissed five minutes after the break when he ignored an offside flag and the referee’s whistle to race away and chip Cudicini.
Chelsea had the chances to preserve their unbeaten record but, as in the opening period of the match, their finishing let them down with Veron and Lampard, who failed to connect with a volley from the edge of the six-yard box, again the most notable culprits. — Sapa-AFP