http://tinyurl.com/e2vk Turkey was down 2-1 at half, came back to win 3-2. Macedonia is ranked #93 by FIFA currently. Did anyone see the game? I'm thinking Turkey would have fielded a strong team for an early Euro 2004 qualifier and that, if that's the case, a strong Turkish team shouldn't have had any problem demolishing Macedonia... Turkey was down 1-0 then tied it 1-1. Then down 2-1, then tied and finally came back to win. Maybe they just underestimated... Or does anyone think Turkey purposefully had trouble in this game just to fool the US?
not a chance. euro 2004 is infinitely more important than the confed cup for all the european teams. it's already been implied that the turks are bringing a less than full team to france (one rumor has nihat and rustu staying home). didn't see the game, but i bet turkey was going all out. they might have taken the game too lightly, but macedonia is considered a dangerous team to play in this group (especially away) - at least by the british commentators covering the ENG/SLO game today. they mentioned ENG would do well to take points at macedonia. it's not like playing liechtenstein.
Turkish lineup for today: 1-Rustu Recber; 2-Emre Belozoglu (14-Gokdeniz Karadeniz 43), 3-Bulent Korkmaz, 4-Fatih Akyel, 5-Alpay Ozalan (13-Ahmet Yildirim 72); 6-Ergun Penbe, 7-Tayfun Korkut (16-Okan Yilmaz 46), 8-Tugay Kerimoglu; 9-Hakan Sukur (17-Volkan Arslan 78), 10-Ibrahim Uzulmez, 11-Nihat Kahveci Looks pretty strong to me. How many of these guys will we see next Thursday???
No Basturk or Sas, and Sukur didn't play much in the WC IIRC. The Inter Milan middie is missing also I think. That's not a full strength Turkey IMHO, but I don't know what they plan to send to the ConCup.
Ilhan Mansiz got injured (playing the season's last game for Besiktas) 2 weeks ago and will probably miss out on the whole confeds cup. I also heard today the following players will not be in the Conf Cup squad: - Emre Belezoglu (injured yesterday) - Okan Buruk (injury from before) - Hakan Sukur (lingering previous injury) - Tugay Kerimoglu (special family-leave; had baby daughter) This in my opinion is good news for Turkey as they will get to try out the new U-21 phenoms like Tuncay. These are the guys they need to mature as they building up for Euro04 and WC06. (It would be cool if the US did the same with their $1-million dollar Nike guy - I forget his name).
Here is the turkey roster (scroll down a bit): http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-confederationssquads&prov=reuters&type=lgns They're certainly not at full strength, but are represented by at least one major international star at every level: goalie (Recber is excellent), defender (both Korkmaz and Ozalan were strong in the WC); midfield (which i assume will be generaled by Basturk); and striker (Kahcevi is the reason Real SOciedad is on top of the world's best league). I'd say Turkey looks as strong relative to their best as we are to our best for this tournament --- though crucially not as strong as they were against Macedonia, that was their full squad.
as usual, it appears turkey's back line will be their weakness... should be an interesting match v. the states. both teams will have good attacking players working against mediocre defenders. i'd love to see gibbs or bocanegra match up against nihat. i'm interested to see who matches up against basturk also. i think this is the most interesting game of the openning round.
lol - nice one. Is that why there were two Spanish teams in the Champion's League Final? Or the reason that two Spanish sides played for the UEFA Cup this year? Or do you base this on the fact that Spain won WC 2002 and Euro 2002? hehehe - just busting your chops...
Is Nihat Kahveci going to be available? Real Sociedad still has 2 games remaining in their season. With a 1 pt lead over Real Madrid it seems pretty unlikely they'd let him go early.
He's listed on the Turkey roster--though I agree it does seem strange that Sociedad would let him go.
Man, this tournament really snuck up on me. Only now, am I starting to get jacked for this Turkey match.
Ah, I see you have only 91 posts, so maybe you really don't know Unfortunately, he's only 13 years old (or maybe he just turned 14). I remember when Landon Donovan was 17 or 18, The Bruce said something to the effect of 'I'm not going to pin my hopes on qualifying on a 17 year old..." or "I'm not so desperate I have to rely on a 17 year old..." or something like that. Two years later, that young man was starting every game at the World Cup...
Well thats my Bruce.... He fool everybody, if you do not think so, just ask the Portuguese, nobody was expecting the kind of lineup Bruce use on WC 2002 he even sit Kiro, I was totally surprise
Nihat and Korkut aren't going to join the team until La Liga ends according to PlanetFootball http://www.planetfootball.com/artic...itle=Turkey+rest+stars+for+Confederations+Cup
It is a real shame Nihat will not be available. I would have loved to see how he would have performed in a tournament like this, but I guess you americans are happy that he isn't in the team. Check out the impressive goal he scored against Macedonia here: http://www.antu.com/naklen/2002-2003/turkiye_makedonya/0203turkiye1makedonya1.mpg
Nihat is Real Sociedads 23 year old forward. He is currently second most scoring player in the Spanish league with 22 goals.
I'd prefer to see all of Turkey's top players at the Cup; they're a good, albeit short team. Nihat is an exciting player to watch... of the Donovan ilk. It should be clear by now, however, that no nation (save NZ perhaps) is bringing a full team.