Friday, July 25, 2008

EURO 2008 Quarterfinal Round 2 Day 14 20/Jun/08

Croatia v. Turkey 1-1 (1-3)
Nerve-breaking games seem to be the leitmotiv of the matches played by the Turkish side. This time was against group winners Croatia, who displayed a perfect record in group stage. The match began with the overwhelming pressure of the "home side". In 19' Modric crossed the ball towards a forward who hit the woodwork, the bounce came to Krancjar who could no capitalize the chance. The match went on as the Croatian side pulled and pulled towards the goal, with some shots wide by the Croatians. Before the ending of the full ninety minutes, Srna's strike was saved providentially by Rustu

The second phase of the game, the next thirty minutes, were dominated mostly by the Croatian pull. It was not until the mere end of the match, at 119', that the brilliant Modric struggled to cross the ball after a clumsy exit of Rustu which was capitalized by Klasnic. Immediately after the goal, a long ball from the keeper went on the box, did not got cleared anf found its way in to the back of the net by a crushing strike by Senturk. Bilic boiled from the bench due to the extention of the time; the goal was scored in injury time. It is quite stupiduos that the referees add injury time in the extra-time because it is over-over-over injury time.

The penalty shoot-out came after the dramatic ending, as a perfect summarized style of the Turkish. The nerves finally came over the Croatians who missed three out of four. Both Rakitic and Modric awnted to put the ball in the corner, a rookie mistake. Finally the Turkish side is on the semifinal, with at least ten men down, either on suspension or injured. We will see how can turks can cope with the diminished side. Here the list of shooters.

















CroatiaModric, MissSrna, OnRakitic, MissPetric, Miss
TurkeyTuran, OnSenturk, OnAltintop, On

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