Barbara Johnston – USA Today Sports
The hosts of the FIFA Confederations Cup, Turkey, were absolutely hammered by France in the Round of 16 meeting in Gaziantep. The score — 4-1 — may seem a bit harsh judging by the amount of chances the home nation wasted in front of goal. Then again, the French even missed a penalty kick.
Firstly, the French were bigger, stronger and in some cases way faster than their Turkish opponents. They won almost every 50/50 ball on the ground and in the air, but most importantly, they were calm throughout the 90 minutes.
For the most part, Turkey certainly hustled and attempted to fight for the ball, but in the first half, they were unable to do much. They constructed a few passes, got out-muscled on almost every occasion and found themselves at a 2-0 deficit before the half was even over.
In the second, Turkey started out much better as they pressed, attacked, fought for possession and even had one or two good chances to cut the lead down to one.
However, when France made it 3-0 they simply gave up as nothing seemed to go their way.
France would go on to make it 4-0 then Turkey pegged one goal back through Bakis — a player who had missed at least four clear cut chances within the last 20 minutes. Regardless, the game would end 4-1 to the French.
There are some positives we can take from this tournament by the Turks.
Players such as Salih Ucan, Kerim Frei and Cenk Sahin have shown some promise at the youth level, and their play shows possibilities of a future on the senior side. If they keep it up by developing and getting extra minutes on their respective club teams, they can easily gain plenty of caps for them in the future.
