Turkish coach Senol Gunes has vowed to spring a surprise for Turkey this summer. The veteran coach, who led his nation to a 3rd place finish at the 2002 World Cup believes this Turkish side has the makings to cause a few upsets.
Turkey have been very impressive recently. They took 4 points off world champions France, which included an emphatic 2-0 win over them. They also beat Netherlands convincingly in the most recent international break.
Senol Gunes, who has had an illustrious managerial career, returned to the helm after a 15-year break. He reckons the Turks have enough quality and passion to compete with the best nations in the continent.
“Being in this tournament and playing in the opening match makes us proud,” Güneş said. “In every opening game there are surprises and I hope we can also spring one.”
Turkey have been scoring goals for fun recently, with them scoring 10 goals in the last international break. With players like Burak Yilmaz, Yusuf Yazici and Hakan Calhanoglu they will not shy away from playing an attractive brand of football.
Turkey are also pretty solid at the back, which is seen by how few goals they conceded during the qualification stage. They are blessed with Caglar Soyuncu, Merih Demiral and Ozan Kabak, who all are quite young and play at a high level with their clubs.
The Turkish side is filled with a lot of young players and they are one of the teams who were helped by the one year delay as a lot of their players have developed over the course of the season.
“If we do not count Burak and a couple of others, we could say that we are quite a young team, perhaps the youngest Turkish team that has participated in a tournament,” Güneş said. “Our players are young but they are trying to play well. They are gaining experience. We have seen good days and have got some confidence from the results that we have achieved.”
