Turkey look to complete Germany hat-trick
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
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Beaten by Germany in Berlin, Guus Hiddink's Turkey will look to make amends by securing a third successive home win over the Germans when the sides meet in Istanbul.
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Turkey will look for an improvement on their first UEFA EURO 2012 meeting with Germany as the sides reconvene for a second Group A encounter in Istanbul.
• Only Belgium can now deny Turkey second place in the section, with top dogs Germany already qualified. Turkey will qualify with a match to spare if they get a better result against Germany than Belgium manage against Kazakhstan.
• Berlin's large Turkish community meant that the sell-out, 74,244-strong crowd at the Olympiastadion was dominated by fans of the visiting team on 8 October last year, but Joachim Löw's side never forgot that they were the hosts and had their greater attacking endeavour rewarded. Miroslav Klose headed their opening goal before half-time (42), and picked up a second three minutes from the end after Mesut Özil had made it 2-0 (79).
• Turkey's record in 19 matches against Germany and the erstwhile West Germany reads W3 D3 L13 (W2 D1 L5 at home). They have won their two most recent home games against Germany.
• Somewhat surprisingly, Turkey won their first encounter with West Germany 2-1, coming out on top in a friendly in west Berlin on 17 June 1951. It remains their only success on German soil, aside from a 2-0 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifying victory over the former East Germany in Magdeburg on 12 April 1989.
• Turkey's record in five fixtures with East Germany was W3 D1 L1 (W2 D0 L1 at home).
• West Germany met Turkey twice at the 1954 World Cup finals. The eventual winners beat the debutants 4-1 in a group game in Berne but had to face them again in a play-off six days later after the pair finished level on points in the section. Sepp Herberger's charges duly prevailed 7-2 in Zurich.
• Germany thwarted Turkey again in Switzerland in the semi-finals of UEFA EURO 2008, this time in Basel. Uğur Boral opened the scoring for Turkey only for Bastian Schweinsteiger to reply before the break. Although Semih Şentürk was able to level the scores after Klose had put Löw's men ahead, Philipp Lahm promptly hit the winner in the final minute.
