Avcı still hopeful despite poor debut

BURSA - Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish national football team coach Abdullah Avcı, who used six first-timers against Slovakia, stands by his young guns. Turkey lost the friendly game 2-1 to Slovakia.

Abdullah Avcı has chosen to see the positives despite suffering a 2-1 friendly defeat at the hands of Slovakia in his first match as Turkish national football team coach.

First-half goals by Vladimir Weiss and Miroslav Stoch, who plays for Turkey’s Fenerbahçe, downed the home team in a friendly on Feb. 29. Bayer Leverkusen defender Ömer Toprak scored the only goal for Turkey at Bursa Atatürk Stadium.

Despite the loss, Avcı remained hopeful. “Today we used five or six players who were getting their first international caps,” he said. “After going down by two goals, they tried to turn the game around, and even lost their tactical discipline doing so. It should not have been like that, but I saw what they tried to do and how they wanted to contribute.”

Galatasaray defender Semih Kaya, Beşiktaş forward Mustafa Pektemek, Trabzonspor playmaker Olcan Adın, Eskişehirspor midfielder Alper Potuk, Gençlerbirliği attacker Soner Aydoğdu and Kayserispor left back Hasan Ali Kaldırım played their first games for Turkey, which started a rebuilding period after Avcı replaced Guus Hiddink.

When asked if he could have played with “more experienced players,” Avcı backed his choice.
“Do experienced players guarantee you a win?” Avcı asked. “We have our problems and we will solve them. I would talk about some problems even if we had won tonight.”

Avcı said he would form a “fast-paced and attacking” team.
 
Turkey will play six friendly games between May and September – a large block of time that was opened up because the team failed to qualify for the European Championships in Ukraine and Poland.