Photo courtesy of Selcuk Inan’s Facebook page
Selcuk Inan wears the no. 8 for both club and country. Last night in Romania, he showed us why his presence is almost mandatory on the field.
Inan almost scored from 40 yards out, with his shot just grazing over the crossbar by mere inches. He has a keen eye for goal and open spaces in the final third, which allows him to place the perfect pass for his teammates. He did not get an assist last night, but his intelligence on and off the ball allowed him to find open positions to run to, and his quick passing brought about good ball movement — something we have not seen in recent times on the national team.
He meshed very well with Caner Erkin, Arda Turan and Gokhan Tore. These players all know how to pass the ball and run with it when need be. They suffered and committed fouls, but none suffered nearly as much as Inan himself.
The no. 8 suffered a rough foot injury as a Romanian player hit him hard, causing a gash to appear on the top of his left foot. After two or three minutes of patching it up, he was right back on the field to continue from where he had left off.
Nuri Sahin is not a bad player himself as he starts consistently nowadays at Borussia Dortmund. He was the player that was sacrificed for Inan after he had a decent performance against Andorra. However, sometimes controlling the midfield but not distributing the ball enough to take chances is not what TUR needed last night, which is why Fatih Terim made the change.
Inan is the captain of his club and in due time, he will be wearing that armband for country as well. He runs back to assist the defense, holds the ball, dribbles, suffers fouls and takes risks that not too many others are capable of. Now, he needs to take advantage of this trust and utilize all of his much-needed skills to bring Gala and TUR the most success possible.
