HERNING, Denmark — For 52 minutes on Thursday evening at MCH Arena, FC Midtjylland gave Vincenzo Italiano’s Besiktas everything they could handle. The Danish side had already hit the woodwork twice through Franculino Dju, played with a compactness that denied the Turkish visitors clean passages through the middle, and entered the second half still very much alive in a tie that Besiktas led by only a single goal from the first leg in Istanbul.
Then Martin Erlic picked up his second yellow card for a foul on Oh Hyeon-Gyu, and the evening’s arithmetic changed.
With ten men and 37 minutes still to play, Midtjylland could no longer maintain the shape and pressing intensity that had made this a contest. Milot Rashica broke the deadlock in the 70th minute, converting a move driven by Junior Olaitan down the left flank. Captain Orkun Kokcu drove a penalty into the bottom right corner six minutes later after Rasmus Kristensen fouled Ilhan Fakili in the area. Besiktas won 2-0, completing a 3-0 aggregate victory that looks decisive on paper and was, for 52 minutes, considerably less than that.
The win sends Italiano’s side into the UEFA Europa League third qualifying round, where they will face the winner of the tie between Czech side Hradec Kralove and Norwegian club Tromso. Two more rounds separate Besiktas from a guaranteed place in the Europa League league phase: a third qualifying round and then a playoff. Elimination at either stage redirects the club to Conference League qualifying.
For Italiano, appointed in June on a two-year deal after leaving Bologna, the result confirmed that his first European campaign as Besiktas manager has gone to schedule. The Italian coach built his reputation at Fiorentina and then Bologna on high-intensity, attacking football, systems that required patience before they produced results at both clubs. Thursday’s victory was a professional exercise in lead management rather than a showcase of those methods, but the aggregate stands at 3-0 and the next round is secured.
What that aggregate does not show is what Besiktas still cannot access. Wilfred Ndidi missed the match through injury. Felix Uduokhai served a suspension. And Leandro Trossard, the Belgian winger who moved to Besiktas from Arsenal in a deal Sky Sports reported at £17 million earlier this summer, was not registered in Besiktas’s UEFA squad for the qualifying rounds, still on post-World Cup leave after representing Belgium at the 2026 tournament. Whether he will be available for the third qualifying round is not yet confirmed.
The Trossard question matters more than it might appear from the scoreline. Besiktas signed the former Arsenal wide man as the kind of proven European-level attacker who could make a genuine difference in the rounds where the competition stiffens. The third qualifying round will be the first stage where that difference, or its absence, becomes measurable. Italiano has not said publicly when his most expensive summer signing will return.
Before Erlic walked, Midtjylland had genuine grounds to believe the tie remained open. Dju struck the post twice in the first half. Osorio also hit the woodwork. Three moments against the frame, all without a goal, is an evening that concentrates a season’s worth of misfortune into a single 45 minutes. Alexander Nübel, in the Besiktas goal, made several saves during a first period when the visitors were not in full control of the match.
What ten-man Midtjylland could not sustain was the pressure. Besiktas, with the numerical advantage, had the patience and the quality in Rashica and Kokcu to convert when openings appeared. Kokcu, who had scored in the first leg in Istanbul, ended Thursday’s second leg with the same composure he had shown there, the kind a captain carrying a side through the early rounds of European qualifying needs to provide quietly and consistently.
Also advancing in European competition on Thursday, though along the Champions League path, Aarhus completed a dramatic comeback in Poznan to reach the Champions League third qualifying round. The same evening’s schedule was a reminder that these midsummer rounds, scheduled in the gaps between preseason tournaments and domestic league openers, carry consequences that September and October will eventually make legible.
The draw for the Europa League third qualifying round was held on July 20, before this leg was played. Besiktas knew their next opponent before Thursday’s whistle. It is a feature of UEFA’s qualifying calendar, an early-draw structure that gives clubs a notional preparation window but which in practice means arriving ready to face a team that may not have been confirmed as the opponent until hours before kickoff.
Hradec Kralove and Tromso are not European heavyweights. On paper, Besiktas should progress to the playoff. But the question Thursday’s result left open is the one the third qualifying round will force Italiano to answer: what does this squad look like when it is whole and tested against opponents without the structural vulnerability of playing 37 minutes short? The 3-0 aggregate is a clean result. What it does not yet tell you is whether the team behind it is ready to go further.
