We are raring to go, say rested Turks

By Steve Williams, Saitama

WITH one crucial exception, World Cup semi-finalists Turkey are reaping the benefits of relatively untaxing domestic seasons for many of their most important players.

Midfielders Emre Belozoglu and Umit Davala struggled to make the first team at Italian clubs Inter and AC Milan. Alpay Ozalan came back from an extended Aston Villa injury lay off for the World Cup, as did left-back Hakan Unsal.

For the Turkish coaching staff, rusti-ness in those players explained the team’s slow start to the tournament. The Turks are peaking now they have their second meeting with Brazil in Wednesday’s semi-final.

“We knew when we came here there were players who were off their best form, players coming back from injury and players who were not playing for their sides,” coach Senol Gunes said.

“The improvement in those players is contributing to the rise in the whole side.” While teams full of exhausted regulars with Europe’s top clubs have crashed out of the World Cup, Turkey’s fresher side are hitting their stride.

The exception that proves the rule is striker Hakan Sukur, who only began playing in the second half of the season in Italy after a move to Parma from Inter Milan, where he had been frozen out of the first team.

A dreadful miss in Turkey’s 1-0 win over Senegal on Saturday showed the country’s top scorer has yet to regain the form that earned him a move to Italy in the first place.

As Turkey prepared for the World Cup, Gunes frequently complained that his central players were gathering dust on benches in Italy.

Now he has started to express concern at tiredness of players like Yildiray Basturk, who came to the World Cup after a long German Bundesliga and Champions League campaign with Bayer Leverkusen.

“It caused us major problems at the start of the tournament, those players like Umit (Davala), Hakan Sukur, Okan (Buruk) and Hakan (Unsal), they’re the skeleton of the team and they were short of matches,” said Turkish Football Federation chairman Haluk Ulusoy.

“But now it’s becoming an advantage,” he said. “They are gathering form and returning to their old selves. They can only get better.”

The players, however, refute any suggestions their form had dropped off. Umit Davala said his two goals in the World Cup were proof he had always been playing well and that not using him had been AC Milan’s loss.

“I don’t agree that I ever had a drop in form,” he said. “The mistake was the club’s.

“ Of course we are happy that we are performing well in the World Cup because it gives us a chance to show what we can do. And it’s the whole world seeing, not just Italy.”