After the Portugal match, national team coach Vincenzo Montella commented: Montella; Altay Bayindur answered questions about Arda Güler and Ismail Yuksek.
Vincenzo Montella said:
“We were better in the first 20 minutes.”
“Overall, I don’t think we played a bad game. We were better in the first 20 minutes. In games like this, if you don’t score in the first minutes it becomes more difficult afterwards.
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After the first goal our morale was down, then we bounced back and then the second one came… We fought until the end to try and recover.
Altai Bayindir decision
All three of our goalkeepers are very good. Altay; he performed very well in the games against Italy, Wales and Germany. I woke up this morning with an injury, so that’s why I made that decision.
“When the results are bad, the first enemy is the coach.”
I know that if the results are bad, my first enemy is the national team coach, so I apply what I know when making decisions.
Ismail Hai
Ismail is coming off a big injury and when I say he’s not ready I mean he’s not ready to take it off for 90 minutes, that’s why I gave him time.
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Arda Güler’s Choice
I feel really sorry for Arda. Arda was really tired and there was a risk of injury. I thought about whether I should buy him or not. I put him in the game thinking he would score a goal.
“Our confidence is not lost, keep going.”
Our road is even longer. We trust each other. That’s why our confidence has never waned, keep going.”
Press conference
We also considered not putting Arda and Kenan on for the last 20 minutes of the match. Most of our players are not used to playing constantly for their clubs. They need to prepare for this physically and mentally. This was the reason for our choice. I would like to add a comment about Arda. Arda is a player who plays with passion. He wanted to go on the field even though he knew there was a risk of injury. It is not a matter of speculation or malice.
We made mistakes and were punished severely, and we will give it our all in the next game.
We were thinking about the centre-forward situation throughout the game, but then we had an injury towards the end of the first half. We were planning to bring on a centre-forward in our final substitution, but with Samet injured, that right was gone.
We didn’t start the match guessing one player. We had to make a tactical choice. We had to make a plan around a player who could come in to the midfield. That’s why we chose Yusuf Yazici. Semi, Cenk and Bertug are both players who play in different styles.
