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Thursday, September 30, 2010
EKREM DAG: BESIKTAS MEAN BUSINESS
Besiktas' Austria international Ekrem Dag has warned the Turkish club expect to claim all three points from their Europa League trip to Rapid Vienna on Thursday.
Besiktas are in good form at present having gone unbeaten in six games in a run that included a 1-0 success over CSKA Sofia in their Group L opener a fortnight ago.
By contrast Rapid have struggled since they produced the shock of the final qualification round when they dumped out Aston Villa.
The capital club lost four consecutive games before their late 3-2 win over struggling Kapfenberg at the weekend.
They were also thrashed 3-0 in the Europa League opener by Porto and Dag, who will sit out the match with a toe injury, expects his visiting team to secure victory.
"We normally should win. The quality of our squad is very high," said Dag, who made his Austria debut earlier this year.
"A club with such a strong squad must make clear the only goal can be to make it into the knockout stage.
"Besiktas come to Vienna not to take one but three points. But we must not underestimate Rapid because they pulled off something extraordinary by kicking out Aston Villa."
Besiktas should be boosted by the return of veteran playmaker Guti, who missed the weekend's 2-1 win over Antalyaspor, while tricky Portuguese winger Ricardo Quaresma is also set to start after only coming on as a substitute against CSKA.
Rapid boss Peter Pacult is wary of the star names in the visiting line-up, but believes his side will face an easier task than their opener away to Porto.
"At Besiktas there are many quality players, but we will be playing in front of a sell-out crowd and that will help us step up our game," he said.
"When we went to Porto you could see that other nations are more secure on the ball, more peaceful than us.
"But Porto is certainly a step up from Besiktas."
Speaking about the possible return of former Real Madrid midfielder Guti, he added: "Physically he may not be the player that he once was, but his key strength is his eye for certain situations.
"Even if he is not the youngest, his quality is indisputable."
Rapid will still be without their own playmaker with Markus Heikkinen still recovering from meningitis while Stefan Kulovits is a doubt with an ankle injury.
SOURCE: 365 Media Group
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