By

Eniola Olatunji

Turkey on Tuesday night at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig slammed Austria via confusion as 26 year old Defender Merih Demiral who plies his trade with Al Ahili scored in the first minute of the game to allow first half end 1-0.

Demiral proved lethal scoring a brace through Arda Guler connect in the 59th minute but substitute Michael Gregoristch of Freiburg reduced the tally for Austria in the 66th minute.

Austria was simply unlucky as they had 5-3 shots on target; 8-2 shots off target 59-41% ball possession; and 10-4 corner kicks. It is notable they were rougher with 12-5 foul calls. Thee performance shows they had a good performance at the group games but Turkey played a more technical game.    

Austria is not as popular in football as Turkey. Turkey always whip them in their meetings as they met in 2001 in the world cup Uefa qualifiers 2nd round which Turkey beat Austria by a lone goal at home and won the 2nd leg 5-0. In 2008 Austria won a friendly match 2-0 but in 2011 at the Euro championships Qualifier Group A Turkey won 2-0 in Istanbul and drew goalless in Austria. Two friendlies were played in 2012 that Austria won 2-0 and the other match in 2016 Turkey won 2-1. The last time they met was in March this year and Austria [laying at home won with a resounding 6-1.

Austria topped group D with 6 points; France was 2nd with 5 points and Netherlands came 3rd with 4 points. Austria lost 0-1 to France; beat Poland 3-1 and also beat Netherlands 3-2 in the group matches.

Turkey was 2nd in Group F after Portugal though they had 6 points each but Portugal had goals superiority 5 goals for and 3 against while Turkey had 5 goals for and 5 against. Debutante Georgia was 3rd with 4 points beating Czech that had 3 points. Turkey had beaten Georgia 3-1; lost to Portugal 0-3 and beaten Czech 2-1.

Turkey will meet Netherlands on Saturday at Berlin by 6pm in the 3rd quarterfinal.

There are other Round of 16 matches that had been decided where Spain had beaten the only Debutante at the tournament, Georgia 4-1 and the German Machine neutralized Denmark 2-0 for both winners to play the first quarterfinals on Friday by 6pm Nigerian Time at Stuttgart. 

Both Spain and Germany hold highest record at UEFA with three titles each. Spain won in 1964; 2008 and 2012 and were runners-up in 1984. Germany won in 1972; 1980 and 1996. That match on Friday will be very tough.

Portugal was lucky to earn a place in the quarterfinals as she played goalless at full time with Slovania and won the first Penalty shootouts of the tournament 3-0. Portugal Captain, Christiana Ronaldo lost the first kick and both he and his mother wept like the wailing woman in Rama.

France got a place by a lucky 1-0 win over Belgium and both France and Portugal will fight to finish in the 2nd quarterfinal on Friday at 9pm in Hamburg.

The Three Lions of England struggled to beat Slovakia 2-1 in a pulsating Round of 16 match and will meet Switzerland that dismissed the Defending Champions, The Azzuris of Italy by 2-0 in the 4th quarterfinal on Saturday by 9pm at Dusseldorf. England never won the title. Their best was runners-up in 2020 when Italy tripped the Three Lions.

This is the 17th edition of the European Championship that has now seen 94 goals scored with 2,170,616 as at Monday night with three joint top scorers in Georges Mikautadze of Georgia; Jamal Musiala of Germany and Ivan Schranz of Slovakia all having three goals each.