Ring the bells, shut the windows, lock the doors, the Turks are Coming!

And at last, Turkey will be represented by none other then Musab himself. Some of you may remember me from the Galatasaray offside. So let me start off by saying this. I am a Galatasaray supporter. I love Galatasaray with all my heart. And at the same time I hate Fenerbahce and Besiktas with all my heart. However for the sake of the national team, I will put my prejudices aside and talk Turkey here.

In the late 90’s Galatasaray was able to produce a powerful team filled with quality Turkish players such as Hakan Sukur, Bulent Korkmaz, Tugay Kerimoglu, to name just a fraction. These players formed the core of the national team along with Fenerbahce’s legendary goalkeeper Rustu Recber and Besiktas’ Ilhan Mansiz which was able in 2002 to shock the world by becoming third place in the 2002 Japan/South Korea world cup.

However after that the national team crumbled. Galatasaray came into the hard financial times and wasn’t able ot produce quality Turks as before and as the old generation got older, the national team went into decline. In 2004, Turkey was unable to go to the Euro’s after being eliminated by Latvia. The newspaper’s headlines explained it all; “From third in the world to third world.”

In 2006 Turkey was unable to get their tickets to Germany after being eliminated by Switzerland as the Swiss went on due to away goals. The brawl which followed truly summed up the state of Turkish football.

However finally in 2008 Turkey was able to finish second in their group and is now on its way to the Euro 2008. Let’s all wish them all the luck in the world.