Euro 2024: The enormous defense that kept Turkey in the Euro
The centre-back who played for Sporting took advantage of Arda Guler’s corners to score two goals. The goalkeeper made the impossible saves
A dream performance by Demiral , who scored the first goal after just 56 seconds and in the 59th minute jumped higher than the two central defenders to score twice. Both chances came from corners taken masterfully by the young Arda Guler . From then on it was a struggle and while Gunok defended everything, Demiral and Bardakcı arrived to clear up any problems. In the heart of the team, Kokçu sought to fight intensely with the very strong Austrian midfield and was often the one who managed to reach the opposing area, sharing the reaction with Arda Guler , Ayhan and Yüksek. But Austria’s dominance was increasingly intense, the Turkish players were showing enormous fatigue and that was when Akturkoglu and Yokuşlu came on . To make matters worse, Montela also lost Kokçu , but with the game drawing to a close Kahveci still managed to give quality to the Turkish possession, with Yılmaz missing two goals, in the 89th minute and 90+4th minute.
As notes from the Turkish team : Gunok (8); Muldur (6), Bardakcı (6), Demiral (8), Kadıoglu (6), Yuksek (5), Ayhan (6); Arda Guler (6), Kokçu (6), Yildiz (5) and Yılmaz (5). Ozcan (5), Yokuslu (5), Akturkoglu (—) and Kahveci (—).
