Turkiye captain Hakan Calhanoglu has doubled down on his pre-match barb towards the Socceroos in a tense exchange with an Australian journalist at the World Cup. Australia pulled off an upset 2-0 victory over former semi-finalists Turkiye in Vancouver on Sunday afternoon (AEST) to send a statement in Group D after stunning goals from Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe.
Despite the scoreline though, they didn’t even play as well as their opponents. Or at least not according to Calhanoglu, who claims his side went down only through their own errors, not Australia’s brilliance. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today ArrowBefore the game, Calhanoglu had confidently declared Turkiye were “more talented” than their 27th-ranked Australian opposition and that they would “dominate” the matchup. Asked about his pre-match comments after the game, Calhanoglu claimed he was proven right.
“We didn’t dominate?” Calhanoglu asked back to the reporter. The journalist responded: “No, I don’t think you did. Possession, sure.” Calhanoglu disagreed: “I don’t think they did the same like you. We dominated today, Australia was just behind, defending good. Two long goals, they scored. It was our mistakes. If you go through the whole 90 minutes and you don’t score, it means you have to always be focused. Be the first to know: Add 7NEWS as your preferred news source on Google. Never give up because I think we did a good game, just we didn’t score.”
Turkiye coach Vincenzo Montella was far more diplomatic in his post-match presser, but still lamented his side’s inability to convert possession into score. “We are extremely saddened, (but) we know there is still time to recover in this group stage,” Montella said. “In the beginning, the team has been a little bit slow and we know there were several characteristics of the opponent that we knew, and we know there are still strong opponents. Somehow we could not score a goal. They (Australia) have been very good in their game. We had 78 per cent of the time where we had the ball but we had not been precise and we think it is also important to score a goal. We have been very close to scoring a goal but it was very difficult, we know the defence was very good, they are very tall, so it is very difficult sometimes to have a competition with other players who are much taller than us. I would like to congratulate them, they have been playing very well. We will continue with our balance and judgement, we are still in the round.”
Next for the Socceroos is a date with tournament co-hosts the United States in Seattle next Saturday, while Turkiye will play Paraguay as they attempt to keep their hopes of a knockout stages berth alive. Stream free on
