early strikes ease lazio through published: thursday 20 march 2003, 23.00cet
besiktas jk 1-2 s.s. lazio (agg: 1-3) lazio take immediate command in istanbul to seal their progress.
early goals from stefano fiore and lucas castromán killed off besiktas jk's uefa cup hopes at the inönü stadium as s.s. lazio comfortably advanced to the semi-finals 3-1 on aggregate.
defensive errors leading 1-0 from the first leg in rome last week, the italian side effectively ended besiktas's challenge within the first ten minutes as defensive errors allowed first fiore then castromán to score.
fiore breaks deadlock claudio lópez set up the first. breaking from inside his own half, he burst into the besiktas box before squaring for the unmarked fiore to sidefoot in. oscar córdoba in the besiktas goal was left with no chance and the story was much the same five minutes later when castromán, totally unmarked, rose to head in fiore's deep cross from the right.
córdoba saves and it could have been worse. just a minute later, fiore was put in behind the besiktas defence, but this time córdoba was quickly off his line to clear. six minutes after that, angelo peruzzi's long punt upfield again caught the besiktas defence square and this time lópez rounded córdoba only to fire wastefully wide.
zago missed without the suspended zago, besiktas looked vulnerable throughout and were hardly recognisable from the side that tops the turkish super league courtesy of the tightest defence. the lazio coach roberto mancini had been vindicated in his decision to start lópez alone up front and after the early goals, his side were happy to invite besiktas forward.
good chances besiktas enjoyed the majority of possession thereafter and ibrahim üzülmez, on his return to the side, ilhan mansiz and ahmet dursun all enjoyed good chances, but with the momentum in lazio's favour, none were able to capitalise.
ilhan fires over on 19 minutes fernando couto cleared daniel pancu's shot off the line after angelo peruzzi had been beaten low to his left, but the best chance of the half fell to ilhan on 33 minutes. sinisa mihajlovic slipped as he turned to clear, but the striker, with a clear sight of goal, snatched at his shot and fired well over.
pancu impresses besiktas pressed again after the restart, and again ilhan was in the thick of the action. on 76 minutes beautiful work by pancu on the right opened the lazio defence and he crossed for the turkish international who, five metres out, attempted an ambitious scissors kick that failed to find the target.
sergen on target besiktas pushed forward relentlessly and their persistence finally paid with seven minutes to go when sergen yalçin shook off the challenge of mihajlovic before shooting low past peruzzi. by then, however, the tie had long been decided.
mistakes punished roberto mancini, the lazio coach, was delighted with the manner in which his side had made the most of their early chances. "we scored two quick goals and things were easier for us after that," he said. "besiktas attacked and we wisely benefited from their mistakes."
unlucky tonight his besiktas counterpart, mircea lucescu, believed the damage had been done in rome. "luck was on their side," he said. "the result of the first match affected this one as we would not have attacked so much if we hadn't needed to score."
