Turkey aims to beat statistics in EURO 2016 match against Spain


As the Turkish National Football team is getting ready to face the EURO 2016 Group D favorite and defending champions Spain on Friday in a critical match, it will also try to beat its poor statistics against renowned national football teams.

According to the data compiled by the Anadolu Agency, since 1999, Turkey managed to win only a single match against teams like Brazil, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which managed to win a world or European title within this period or runners-up in these respective tournaments.

In total 19 matches played against these teams, Turkey lost 14 of them while four ended in a draw. The only victory against these teams came at the EURO 2016 qualification stage against the Netherlands, when Turkey beat the Oranges 3-0 in a Group A game played in the central city of Konya on Sep. 6. Showing a poor performance all over the qualification stage and finishing the group in fourth position behind Turkey, the Netherlands could not qualify for a European championship for the first time since 1984.

Only three games ended with Turkey not conceiving a goal, while the country could not score in 10 matches.

Before this match, the last victory against these teams was the 1-0 win against Germany on Oct. 10, 1998 during the qualification stage of EURO 2000, in which Turkey managed to reach the last 16.

Here are the results in all 19 matches since 1999: