Turkey hosted Romania, the current Group D leaders at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in what was supposed to be a competition for the second spot in the group behind the Dutch. However, with Romanian's third consecutive win, it seems they are now competing for the top spot in the group against Holland, while Turkey's chance to place waver.
Turkey started off strong in last night's game, overseen by British referee Howard Web. However, a misguided decision by Turkish goalkeeper Volkan Demirel which had him dashing out of his area to block a ball brought in by Gheorghe Grozav who scored from nearly 30 meters.
Turkey has now dropped into fourth place with three points, their sole win against Estonia, and follows Hungary at six points and Romania and Holland, both with nine points each. The Turkish National team faces off against Hungary next in Budapest on October 16th.
Last night's line-ups were as follows:
Turkey: 23-Volkan Demirel, 7-Gokhan Gonul, 4-Semih Kaya, 21-Omer Toprak, 3-Hasan Kaldirim, 15-Mehmet Topal, 5-Emre Belozoglu (10-Nuri Sahin 81), 6-Hamit Altintop (19-Mevlut Erding 61), 23-Sercan Sararer (18-Emre Colak 68), 14-Arda Turan, 9-Umut Bulut
Romania: 12-Ciprian Tatarusanu; 3-Razvan Rat, 4-Gabriel Tamas, 5-Alexandru Bourceanu, 6-Vlad Chiriches, 11-Gabriel Torje, 13-Gheorghe Grozav (16-Razvan Cocis 50), 15-Dorin Goian, 18-Doru Pintilii, 19-Bogdan Stancu (10-Adrian Mutu 82), 9-Ciprian Marica (7-Alexandru Chipciu 79)
