Turkey said inglorious goodbye to the European Championship on Sunday evening. The Turks also lost the last group match 3-1 to Switzerland and therefore end the tournament with zero points, after losing to Italy (0-3) and Wales (0-2). National coach Senol Günes apologizes to the country after the game with the Swiss.
“We are disappointed because we wanted to get through the group and thought we were good enough for that,” he wrote fanatic up from the mouth of Gunes. “We have not met expectations. We were left with a trauma from the first defeat. We were now slightly better than against Wales, we were able to recover something. Switzerland also has talented players. I’m sorry about this game and the one against Wales. Those are games we need to win.”
“This is a team that will color the next ten years of Turkish football. But such a performance in a final tournament is unacceptable”, continues Günes. “I am responsible for this. I’m not thinking about getting fired yet, but someone will have to pay the price for this. The media is also to blame. Before the tournament we were expected to play the final, now we are getting too much criticism.”
“But the board is also responsible and the rest of the coaching staff. Players and their individual fouls are also responsible for this. This was a big test for us. Sometimes you learn more from this kind of setback than from your successes,” the national coach of Turkey emphasizes. “We will participate in tournaments in the future and we will show what we are made of. It is a young team, we can still make up for this. But for now I apologize to our country.”
“We had prepared well for this tournament”, says Burak Yilmaz after the duel with Switzerland. “We dreamed of different things and have not been able to represent our country well. Maybe we took too much responsibility, maybe we wanted too much, maybe we put ourselves under unnecessary stress. We would like to apologize to the entire country. Things have happened that shouldn’t have happened.”
“We have gained experience,” said Hakan Calhanoglu. “We are a young team and we lack experience. But we will continue our path. A World Cup is on the horizon.” Merih Demiral speaks afterwards about the expectations that existed around the Turkish team. “There is a lot of disappointment. I don’t really know what to say. I hope we will show ourselves at the next tournament. We are a young team, we have to take this experience with us.”
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