News of the Day: Volkan’s punishment is revealed, Mehmet and Sabri speak their minds, and Croats are caught spying

With only two days left till our Quarter-final match against Croatia, the Turks are making their final preparations for the match. So what’s going on? Well let’s see:

Team Injuries and Banned players

1. Volkan Demirel- As we all know Volkan saw a red card for pushing Koller away during the Turkey- Czech Republic match. Many say that it was a bit harsh, but at the end of the day he’s out. today UEFA revealed that Volkan has been given a two match ban as well. One match for the red card and one for not going straight to the showers but sitting on the bench for the remaining minute. What an idiot. Couldn’t anyone there at the bench tell him to just go to the locker rooms?

2. Emre Belezoglu- It seems that Emre’s hamstring injury will make him miss the rest of the tournament. Im still not sure whether his absence will actually affect us negatively. I mean he only played in the Portugal match and didn’t do anything of importance. In the Switzerland and Czech Republic match the midfield held pretty well without him. But still, Emre’s quality cannot be disputed. We’ll see what happens.

3. Emre Gungor- In the Czech Republic match, the second Emre was injured in the first part of the second half. Team doctors say that he has a pulled calf muscle, effectively ruling him out of the tournament. Emre was a good defender but we’ll see what Fatih Terim has in store.

4. Tumer Metin- Tumer was injured in the water logged pitch at St. Jakob stadium in the Switzerland-Turkey match and was removed from play after the first half. I don’t think we’ll be missing him all that much.

In addition, the national team held a press conference today with right-back Sabri Sarioglu and central midfielder Mehmet Topal taking part. Here’s what they had to say:

Sabri:

“Even though I usually play as a substitute, I don’t believe it hampers my performance. Besides, after entering the match, we were able to turn the match around for a victory. I’m very proud to take part in this. The important thing for us in the Croatia match if to put our hearts into the match and play with all our desire. It dosen’t matter who we play against, we have to play top-notch football.

In response to a question about Turkey’s come from behind victories:

“Most of the time it takes us some time to get into the match, and as a result we concede goals. However we almost always raise our tempo in the second half and this is our key to victory. Hopefully this will also lead us to victory in the Croatia match.”

Mehmet Topal:

“Our goal is to beat the Croats and get to the next round. Thats our only goal, that’s the only thing on our minds right now. We as a team love to fight for the ball and we put our hearts into the match. We came here to be succesful. If that means winning the cup, then so be it. Im sure that the Croatia match will be a hard fought match with both sides attempting to get the better of each other. I feel that when it comes to the two teams forwards, we have the advantage. If we can also help out midfield and defense, we can beat them.”

And finally a pretty embaressing story from the training grounds. Apparently a group of Croatian camermen were able to elude security and reach the balcony of a building close to the national team’s training grounds in order to videotape the team’s tactical training. It was only when Fatih Terim himself noticed the crew and enquired about them were they “escorted” out.

Way to go TFF. If you can’t provide some basic security for the team, how can you expect Fatih Terim to lead this team ot victory?