What happened in Turkish football today? 22/11/2023

Turkey ends as group leaders for first time in its history.

Turkey has ended its qualifying campaign as group leaders for first time in its history as it has got 1:1 draw against Wales thanks to the penalty goal from Yusuf Yazici at the game where Turkey did show pretty mixed performance.

Compare to Wales, Turkey did come to the game as side which arleady got ticket to Euro 2024 proper competition and to some extend did have relaxation of that even through a point would lead them to end group as leaders. This relaxation and to some extend, achieving its main task did lead side to provide pretty ineffective performance during 1st half as Wales did find an early goal on 8th minute and also did show good strong game. However, Turkey did raise tempo during 2nd half and start creating great chances and showed generally more eagerness in the attack which has led to get penalty position and found draw with Yusuf Yazici.

Hence, Turkey did end group stage as leader leaders for 1st time in its history and now would be waiting for its opponents on 2nd December for tournament proper.

Ugurcan Cakir returns from national team duty with an injury

Turkish National Team player Ugurcan Cakir did become injured in the start of the game and this has led for medical control quite understandably from his club Trabzonspor and even through it is unclear about seriousness of injury, team doctors started working on his recovery.

With Ugurcan Cakir being main goalkeeper at the team, there is also not being very strong alternative at its squad so as with every team and coach, Abdullah Avci would not be happy with Cakir returning from national duty as injured players and would hence expecct for him to recover fast. Therefore, it would be expected for team doctors to be working hard while Avci would be preparing his substitutes both technically and also mentally as Trabzonspor aims to get close to league leaders.

Without doubt, Cakir has been unwanted but there is expectation that injury is not as serious as it looks in the start.

Vincenzo Montella has rose motivation and confidence at the team

Even through we keep stating at our blog that role of Stefan Kuntz for ending this group stage as leaders should not be underestimated, role of Vincenzo Montella is being very important as players did improve with their performance.

One of the main aspects which has been seen is that Turkey does look to be on unity and believing into getting wins or turning around games as it has managed to turn around game around against Wales which is being character which would be crucial at Euro 2024 without doubt. Even through when Kuntz left group, Turkey has been leaders in the group, there was lack of self-belief and confidence in the team and Montella playing role of also psychologist did bring that to team and they start showing its strong character. Montella did change team into enjoying playing games, to be inside and believing whatever scoreline and with adding this to quality team start getting positive results.

Turkey hence does have potentiality to show good results in the Euro 2024 but there are many areas which need to be improved without doubt.

In other news:

- CuneytSezgin will be included at Besiktas CEO candidate Hasan Arat administrative team if he wins election.

 - Internacional are interested to transfer Besiktas player Vincent Aboubakar.

- Fenerbahce are interested to transfer Kasimpasa player Yasin Ozcan.

- Galatasaray are interested to transfer Maccabi Haifa player Anan Khalili.

- Besiktas are interested to transfer Arsenal player Elneny