Croatia briefed for Turkey late show
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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Croatia coach Slaven Bilić will make sure his team do not lower their concentration levels during the latter stages of their quarter-final with Turkey on Friday.
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Late comebacks
Turkey sealed their place in the last eight thanks to Nihat Kahveci's late two-goal salvo against the Czech Republic in their last Group A outing, turning a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win in the final three minutes. Before that, Fatih Terim's side fought back to defeat Switzerland with a dramatic winner in added time. But Bilić said: "We're not worried. We'll be cautious and we'll be prepared because they've come back twice, but of course I'd like us to score first."
Turkey strengths
The 39-year-old nonetheless feels his team can expect a tough encounter at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion. "They play good football, they're very aggressive, they have some players with great skill and some good strikers of the ball from distance," he said. "We've been following them from the first game, but it's not easy to communicate the information to our players. It's easier to talk to them about [Michael] Ballack or [Fernando] Torres. Then again, Turkey won't know much about our players either because we don't really have world-class names."