Our day with Destiny- Turkey takes on Portugal

June 6th, 2008 | by: Musab | Comments(6)

After months of waiting, the day is finally upon us. Tomorrow the Ay-Yildizlar take on one of the strongest sides in European football-Portugal. Without a doubt we are the underdogs going into this but as we learned last year, anything is possible at the big stage.

The squad is pretty much set with an interesting 4-3-3 formation:

Nihat Kahveci
Tuncay Sanli-Mevlut Erdinc
Emre-Aurelio-Hamit Altintop
Hakan Balta-Gokhan Zan-Servet Cetin-Sabri Sarioglu
Volkan Demirel

What happened to the glory days only a couple of years ago…..

I guess the squad could have been worse. My only real complaint is that the defense is terrible. Hakan Balta is too slow to get forward and come back and Gokhan Zan makes a mistake at an average of 4 per match. However there are some players that we can rely on.

First and foremost, Hamit Altintop will be key to our gameplan. Hamit’s consistent and hard woring style of play makes him a vital part of this national team. Secondly Emre has to really work hard in the heart of the midfield. The last thing we need is an open gate for the Portuguese to flood through.

In addition we also have some advantages.

For one the Turkish national team has a greater overall team morale than the Portuguese. Their are too many egos and “personalities” that are greater than Felipao. There is also a poorly-kept secret that many of the Portuguese players are sick and tired of Ronaldo’s ways. On the other hand, all of the Turkish players are completely obedient to “Imparator” and all of them wish to work together to bring the team to great places.

At the end of the day, nobody expects us to defeat Portugal. Many people watching the Turkish camp have stated that the Turkish players are very comfortable and have complete confidence in their abilities to get the job done (job meaning advancing to the next round). On the other hand, there will be tons of pressure on the Portuguese to defeat us. And as we all know, pressure causes mistakes and mistakes lead to Turkish counterattacks and Turkish counterattacks lead to goals for the milli takim.

My prediction? A 1-1 draw which then inspire Turkey to defeat Switzerland and Portugal to “work for us” and defeat the Czechs. I see both Portugal and Turkey advancing, in first and second order respectively.

Come on Ay-Yildizlar, let’s show the world what the Turks can do!!!!!