The Turkey national football team is the national football team of Turkey and is controlled by the Turkish Football Federation. They are affiliated with UEFA.

The team’s highest achievement was reaching 3rd place at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Turkey also reached the quarter-finals at Euro 2000 and reached 3rd place at the 2003 Confederations Cup.

Turkey finished second in Group C behind European champions Greece, they won their first three games.Then they beat Greece in Atina with a score 4-1. After that they lost their way and started to lose points one to another. When they won last match against Bosnia Herzegovina (1-0) ,they were only just one point over Norway in the secon place.

Turkey is in Group A in the tournament with home team Switzerland, Portugal and Czech Republic.All teams can get up to upper round of the tournament.

Turkish players:

Goalkeepers: Hakan Arıkan ,Volkan Demirel ,Serkan Kirintili ,Rüştü Reçber ,Orkun Uşak

Defenders: Orhan Ak ,Can Arat ,Emre Aşık ,Deniz Barış ,Sedat Bayrak ,Servet Çetin ,Gökhan Gönül ,İbrahim Toraman ,Volkan Yaman ,Gökhan Zan

Midfielders: Ayhan Akman ,Hamit Altıntop ,Mehmet Aurélio ,Hakan Balta ,Yıldıray Baştürk ,Emre Belözoglu , Hüseyin Çimşir ,Selcuk Inan ,Gökdeniz Karadeniz ,Tugay Kerimoğlu ,Tümer Metin ,Serdar Özkan ,Nuri Şahin , Sabrı Sarıoğlu , Yusuf Simsek ,Mehmet Topuz ,Arda Turan ,İbrahim Üzülmez

Forwards: Halil Altıntop ,Umut Bulut ,Nihat Kahveci ,Ümit Karan ,Tuncay Sanli ,Semih Şentürk ,Hakan Şükür , Fatih Tekke ,Gökhan Ünal ,Mehmet Yildiz

Fatih Terim is technical director of Turkey.Turkish people are desperately expecting from him another degree like Fifa World Cup 2002.This tournament will be his second tournament with Turkey,first one was 2000. Terim - known as ‘Imparator’ (’The Emperor’) in his home country for his awesome leadership skills - could not guide Turkey through a 2006 FIFA World Cup play-off against Switzerland which ended fractiously in Istanbul.
He also won the UEFA Cup with Galatasaray in 2000.
Achiements, 1 UEFA Cup, 4 Turkish championships, 2 Turkish Cups,1 Mediterranean Games gold medal with Turkey national under-21 football team , Nomination for UEFA Coach of the Year 2001 (eventually won by Gérard Houllier)

History

World Cups 1950 and 1954

Turkey qualified for the 1950 World Cup beating Syria 7-0 but they withdrew due to financial problems.

Image via Wikipedia

Turkey then qualified for the 1954 World Cup after a play-off with Spain. The Turkish team first lost 4-1 to Spain but a 1-0 win a few days later initiated a replay. On that occasion they tied 2-2 after, booking their place after a coin toss. Turkey was put in a group along with Hungary and West Germany. However the Turks never played Hungary due to the tournament format, and a 4-1 defeat by the Germans was followed by Turkey carrying out a 7-0 win over South Korea. Turkey lost the play-off to West Germany 7-2.

’60s to ’90s

Despite the introduction of a national league, and showings by Turkish clubs in European competition, the 1960s would be a barren time for the national team. The 1970s saw Turkey in the World Cup and European Championship qualifiers, but the team was a point too short to qualify for Euro 1972 and Euro 1976.

The 1980s saw Turkey two 8-0 defeats to England. Yet the 1990 World Cup qualifiers would mark a turning point for Turkish football, with Turkey only missing out on qualification in the final game.

Euro 1996 and 2000

Turkey qualified for the Euro 96, beating both Switzerland and Sweden 2-1, but then they lost all their matches without scoring a single goal. However, they did go home with an award: the fair-play award, given to Alpay Özalan.

Turkey qualified for Euro 2000 after winning a play-off against the Republic of Ireland. Turkey lost their first match 2-1 to Italy, they drew their second match against Sweden 0-0, and beat host nation Belgium 2-0, making it the first time in the history of the European Championship that a host nation had been eliminated in the first round, brought Turkey into the last eight of the tournament where Portugal won the quarter-final match 2-0.

World Cup 2002

The Turkish team started the 2002 World Cup with a 2-1 defeat against Brazil. Turkey passed the group stage with a 3-0 win against China.

Turkey then faced home team Japan, beating them 1-0. The Turkish team continued their run, as they beat Senegal 1-0 on a golden goal to book their place in the semi-finals where a 1-0 defeat against Brazil forced them to play the third place match, and a bronze medal was the prize after a 4-2 victory over South Korea. Hakan Şükür scored Turkey’s first goal in 10.8 seconds, even when the South Koreans kicked off first. It was the fastest goal in World cup history.^[1]

Confederations Cup 2003 and Euro 2004

In the summer of 2003, Turkey reached third place at the 2003 Confederations Cup in which they drew 2-2 against Brazil. Turkey lost to eventual tournament winners France 3-2 in the semi-final match. Turkey defeated Colombia 2-1 to win third place.

The Turkish team failed to qualify for Euro 2004 on play-offs due to a loss to Latvia after finishing second in their group.

World Cup 2006

The Turkish team once again narrowly missed out on the finals after failing to win a play-off, this time on away goals against Switzerland, again after finishing second in their group. There were scenes of violence after the game on and off the pitch.