HERNING, July 31 -- 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 th...