Turkey v Romania
Football : International friendly 2010
Venue: Şukru Saracoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
Wednesday 11th August 2010, Kickoff: 21:45 GMT+2

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Turkey (FIFA rank: 28)

Turkey’s national team needed a change after failing to qualify for the second time in a row to the World Cup, so in February this year they hired miracle-worker Guus Hiddink. His job is to take the team to the Euro 2012.

His job won’t be easy at all, they were grouped with Germany who is the big favorite for winning the group, so they’ll have to fight for the second place with Austria and Belgium.

Turkey played 3 games in May this year, winning against Northern Ireland and Czech Republic but suffered a narrow defeat in Philadelphia against the United States. Euro 2012 qualifiers will start on September so playing against Romania will be a useful test before the official matches kick off.

Two players will miss this match due to injuries, Galatasaray’s defender Sabri Sarîoglu and Getafe’s player Ibrahim Kaş.

Romania (FIFA rank: 42)

Since Euro 2000, Romania only qualified for one major tournament, Euro 2008 when they finished 3rd, ahead of France. The World Cup 2010 qualification campaign was a total disaster and proved to be fatal for ex-coach Victor Piturca.

Razvan Lucescu (Mircea Lucescu’s son) is the new manager and he has the job to rebuild the team, to try making a smooth change of generations. However, there are not many new players in this squad that were not present in the World Cup qualification campaign, which points to Lucescu’s concern about results in friendly games as well. He is under intense media pressure after recent friendly game results (which includes defeats against Macedonia and Israel), so to avoid bad press, he will use experimented players in hope of getting a positive result.

Players from the national league have the majority, 13 from a total of 23. Steaua is the team that gives the most players to the national time, 4, followed by Unirea Urziceni and CFR Cluj with 3 players each.

There are important footballers that are playing at foreign clubs as well, we should see in the first 11 the following: goalkeeper Bogdan Lobont (AS Roma), defenders Cristian Chivu (Internazionale Milano), Gabriel Tamas (WBA), Razvan Rat (Shakhtar Donetsk) and strikers Daniel Niculae (As Monaco) as well as Ciprian Marica (Vfb Stuttgart).

The Betting Verdict :

Guus Hiddink declared that he remains loyal to his idea of offensive football, but will try to set up a solid defense in order to get results. In front he expects players like Turan, Nihat or Altintop to demonstrate their creative qualities and make holes in Romania’s defense.

Romania on the other hand has the moral advantage of defeating Turkey (2-0) in August 2007 which was their only recent clash.

With no much stake in the game, I expect both teams to play offensive, especially Turkey, they cannot afford to play otherwise in front of their own crowd. Romania has the quality to score against a team that was never known for their defensive qualities.

The Pick :

Turkey 2-1 Romania

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Both teams to score at 1.83 Bet365