We Asked Three Weeks Ago, Kadıköy Answered: Beşiktaş's Scoring Problem Is History

Three weeks ago, looking at a table in which Beşiktaş had won all five but scored only six goals, we asked this: when will this team's identity be settled inside the penalty area? In the season's first derby at Kadıköy, that question was answered as loudly as it possibly could be.

The question we asked three weeks ago

In the assessment published on 17 August we underlined the solidity Beşiktaş were showing at the back, but issued a clear warning: with names like Vlahović and Trossard added to the squad, scoring only six goals closed the era of excuses. The sentence we used in that column was plain: this team's identity would be settled inside the penalty area over the next twenty days.

The most critical evening of those twenty days was Kadıköy, and the answer came from exactly the place we were looking.

The answer delivered at Kadıköy

Beşiktaş did not panic in a derby played away from home in which Fenerbahçe scored early. Rıdvan Yılmaz's equaliser on 38 minutes showed the team's will to stay in the match. But the real message came on 73 minutes: picked out by Orkun Kökçü, Dušan Vlahović finished calmly to put Beşiktaş 2-1 ahead. It was the first derby goal by a centre-forward brought to the club in the summer, in the season's biggest match.

It would be hard to find a clearer answer to the question we asked three weeks ago: the investment in the squad paid out at exactly the moment and in exactly the place it was needed.

More than a goal: character

Explaining this win through one goal alone would be incomplete. Beşiktaş won from 1-0 down away from home; that is not a script easily repeated. Rıdvan Yılmaz had to leave the field injured after scoring the equaliser, but up to that minute he left everything he had on the pitch. The flashpoint with Milan Škriniar in the second half and the bookings that followed raised the nervous weight of the derby; rather than coming apart in that atmosphere, Beşiktaş held their concentration until the 73rd minute.

A team's character is measured not in the matches where things come easily, but on exactly these evenings.

The credit Italiano has earned

There is a coaching dimension to this win too. Vincenzo Italiano took the fruit of the football he has built since taking charge in his first Beşiktaş derby, in the hardest conditions possible: away from home, from behind. The players he sent out to solve the productivity problem we questioned three weeks ago — Vlahović, Trossard, Orkun Kökçü — were directly involved in two of the derby's three goals. That is not a coincidence, it is the plan built over the summer showing up on the pitch.

The FutbolRadar read

It is worth remembering the lines we wrote three weeks ago: the era of excuses was over, and this team's identity would be settled in the penalty area. The identity we saw at Kadıköy was an encouraging one — a team that can come from behind, that does not fall apart under pressure and that can bring its biggest name to the fore in the biggest match. One derby win does not, of course, close the productivity question from the start of the season entirely; Beşiktaş will need to show the same finishing quality against the sides in the lower reaches of the league too. But the question asked has been answered, on the largest possible stage and by exactly the right man.

This win takes Beşiktaş to 9 points and they carry on into the season with a strong message as the derby winners. For all the detail of the match, see our derby column and the Beşiktaş team page; our assessment from three weeks ago stands here.