Turkey National Team crashes out of World Cup U17 loosing to Colombia in penalties

The Football World Cup U17’s  came to an end with an awful quarter final for the Turkish National team. I believe we should take are hats off and just think rather then being disappointed that we lost to Colombia on penalties in a rather unfortunate way.

Though our Under 17 National team left us heart broken in the European championship they came third in the group stages of the qualifiers for the world cup which made them eligible for automatic qualification. To tell the truth we were full of hope when they finished 1st in the group stages of the finals. But yet again our dreams fell apart. While making plans of playing in the finals, we suddenly found ourselves going home. Hopes again went to another spring, like so many times before.

What do you think the young stars that will put our hopes up again and play for success in the next national tournaments do? All of them will go back to their domestic clubs, play in their age groups and wait for the day they go onto play for the A team and of course hope to be picked for the Under 21 national side. Without a doubt players that play football in teams out of Turkey will have a better chance of playing for the national team then players that play for clubs in Turkey. A gruesome fact but local clubs especially in the past few years have showed great weakness in raising players from a young age and making them good enough to play in the A team other then a minority of players.

Do you remember our young National football team that reached the European Championship in 1992. The players who made the team were all as talented as each other but unfortunately only Emre Aşık and Okan Buruk were able to carry their carriers in a stable manner. Okan Derelioğlu ended his active sports life with an unstable manor. Goalkeeper Yetkin Akman, Ilhami Arslan, Seyfettin Kurtulmuş, Bülent Yılmaz and Tarkan Aklan who scored the goal in extra time to bring the cup home were all players of that year, but all disappeared without having success in the A team again.

Actually we have been experiencing the same scenario for many years. When you first take a glance to the youth teams of our clubs they look very busy and look like they have many good young stars who play for the national team of their age group. However the color of the game changes when the players are to be recalled back to the National team. Many young players either get less time in the first 11 in their domestic clubs due to foreign players which gives their development a blow or simply they are loaned out to lower divisions. Unfortunately this approach is used by our clubs as a way of getting their player numbers down.

As an example, at the World Cup U17 played in Nigeria, Orhan Gülle, Furkan Şeker and Sezer Özmen are all in the first 11 of our national team and are players of Beşiktaş but do not have the possibility to play in the A team. Most probably these 3 players will progress to the A team but there is a high chance they will be drafted to the A2 team of Beşiktaş or be loaned to other clubs probably in the lower divisions. However it is very obvious that our clubs need athletes such as these players who are the best in their positions in the country.

We are forcing ourselves into failure by wasting our natural home grown talent. If we want Turkish football and Turkish Athletes in general to become successful in the international platform, then our clubs must seriously revise the politics they act on when the finger points at young players. Fail to do so and we are digging our own graves, an endless amount of heart broken nights await all us sports fans.

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