In the first two matches of the tournament, which went with great hopes after the fantastic wins against the top countries in European football and the tactically well planned off-the-ball game plan, we encountered an unplanned, soulless and physically exhausted national team. Well, was it obvious that this would happen, did we as a nation deceive ourselves with unnecessary words and expressions, or did we not do the tactical and physical work that we needed to do in the preparation process before the tournament? Of course, it is impossible to know these as an outside observer, so it will be an article where I completely give my personal thoughts and observations.
We played the first match of the group in Rome against Italy, which had a 27-game unbeaten streak under Roberto Mancini. Against us was Italy, who was physically strong, had a high midfield quality and played a fast paced game. Despite being shown as one of the favorites of the tournament with this series they caught, the Italian of course had weaknesses. Bonucci and Chiellini, who are now at the end of their careers in the center back tandem, stand out as the weak links of the team. Of course, there was a situation where the defeat against Italy was not a surprise, but at the end of 90 minutes, all football fans were not satisfied with the game played. We were not bad at all in the first half hour, but there was a national team that disbanded for the rest of the match. What happened at the 30th minute? Chiellini jogged into the Turkey penalty area in the flowing game. Maybe this position could be the highlight of the match. If a center back can find this courage, it means that you have not made your opponent feel the threat. The fact that we do not have a memorable attack throughout the game may be an indicator of our failure. But when this team came to this tournament, it came with the quality of the defensive line, not the offensive side. So why Turkey's defensive lines look like tangled fishing line, it's why.
We saw a national team that was stunned by the fact that Italian players were very active and the positions they found by making good use of the fields. We expected a counter move from Şenol Güneş against Mancini's move, but unfortunately that move did not come for 90 minutes. Well, one question comes to mind. Although the group draws were drawn 18 months ago and the Turkish football league ended earlier than all other leagues, why couldn't we see a plan B on the field? I think this period of time I mentioned is quite enough for competitor analysis. We thought that we would be able to rank well in this tournament by making a compact defense in the first region. At the end of 90 minutes, we had only 3 shots (0 SOT) against Italy's 24 attempts. Worse still, we couldn't get out of our own half for minutes. Our midfielders were extremely disconnected from each other and physically the whole team was in very bad shape except for one or two players. Physically bad appearance raises the same question. But could Şenol Güneş make a move despite seeing this bad trend in the first half. The expected moves came in the second half. It was really surprising that Şenol Güneş, who completely changed the structure in the center, kept Çalhanoğlu in the game throughout the match. Cengiz Ünder, one of the changes in the second half, added a little bit of activity to our game, but unfortunately, the result was inevitable both due to the form of Cengiz and unable to get the necessary support from the rest of the team.
When we came to the end of the match, there were many players who failed in our team. But of course, I would like to highlight a few players in Italy. Mancini solved the way out of our first 30-minute game that I mentioned, with the active use of Spinazzola. He took a tremendous amount of effort for 90 minutes. Although Kenan Karaman followed his runs in the first 30 minutes, we saw a Spinazzola doing whatever he wanted from the left side due to his physical strength throughout the rest of the match. At the same time, they played a near-perfect match with forward 3s and middle 3s in Italy, which imprisoned us in our own field.
Well, if we look at the question that I mentioned at the beginning of the article, did we raise expectations too high? Turkey ranks 10th in tournament teams in terms of market value. But most of this value comes from our defenders. The problem we've seen in the world cup qualifiers and previous EURO 2020 qualifier matches is that this team doesn't have a game changer player to rely on.
Transfermarkt
To summarize, of course, it would be an unforgettable moment to win against Italy, but from the moment we entered the tournament, it was the goal of all Turkey to come out of this group by finishing second behind Italy. As a Turkish football lover, I was disappointed that the game played and the players did not seem physically and mentally ready for the tournament rather than the result in Rome. In the Turkish league, we considered our players to finish earlier and enter the camp earlier than other leagues due to the tightness of the season, as a theoretical advantage, but I saw a physically collapsed team. There was no trace of the team we saw in the previous France, Netherlands, Norway matches.
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