Luck of the Turks

Move aside Irish people, you are no longer lucky!

Who needs four-leaf clovers, or leprechaun, or the colour green. All you need is a bunch of football players from Turkey, and you can ride your luck all the way to the finals.

There is no such thing as luck of the Irish. in 2002, Republic of Ireland made it as far as the second round in the World Cup. They lost that game to Spain in the penalty shoot-out. So much for luck in that game.

Fast-forward to 2008, another Championship: Euro 2008. There is no Republic of Ireland. But there are the resilient Turks.

Turkey was drawn into Group A with host Switzerland, Portugal and Czech Republic. They lost their first game 2-0 against Portugal. In their second game against the Swiss, they won 2-1 thanks to a last minute goal that sealed the victory. But the best was the final game of the group against Czech Republic. The Czechs looked home and dry with a 2-0 lead, but if they think they were cruising into the quarterfinals from there, they were wrong. The Turks scored 3 goals in the last 15 minutes, with 2 goals coming in the last 3 minutes of the game. They had plenty of help from Petr Cech, the so-called best goalkeeper in the world, whom ghastly error gifted the Turks the equaliser. A comeback completed. A date with Croatia set.

The game against Croatia ended goalless after full time. Both sides had good chances to clinch it, but neither managed to score the elusive goal. Croatia had the better of the chances, squandering chance after chance, with the aid of the Turk in-form goalkeeper, Recber Rustu. Extra time beckoned, and just as the game looked set to move into penalty shoot-out, Ivan Klasnic scored what could have been the winning goal with less than a minute left on the clock when Rustu did a kamikaze and flapped at his own goal. It was over, Croatia is going to the semifinals.

Not only the commentator was bamboozled, everyone else watching the game thought it was over too. Not for the Turks though. They had one last trick up their socks, and with practically the last kick of the match, Semih Senturk crashed home the equaliser in stoppage time. The referee blew the whistle. The game was going into penalty shoot-out.

Croatia up first. Wide. Turkey scored. 1-0.

Both teams scored. 1-2.

Another wide attempt from the Croats. Turkey had no such problem. 1-3.

Mladen Petric needed to score from the spot. Rustu was up to it, and saved. Turkey won.

The Czechs and the Croats might blame it on their bad luck, but Turkey is riding their good luck to set a date with the Germans in five days time. In World Cup 2002, Turkey made it as far as the semifinals where they were thwarted by Brazil. Beating Germany might be a tall order for the Turks, but with the luck that they are having at the moment, anything is possible.

If Greece can defy the odds and won Euro 2004, there is no reason that Turkey can't do the same.