Terim fine-tunes Turkey plans

Turkey coach Fatih Terim has opted to exclude Yıldıray Baştürk, Halil Altıntop and İbrahim Kaş from his squad for UEFA EURO 2008™ as he confirmed his 23-man squad for the final tournament.

'Hard night – tough morning'
Terim announced his final selection at the Hotel Klosterpforte in the village of Marienfeld, Germany, and emphasised how difficult it had been to reduce the squad from the original 27-man party he had provisionally selected. "It was a hard night yesterday and a tough morning today for me to make this decision," he said. "Yıldıray and Halil have been useful members of our national team for years and will be in the future. I have a system in my mind for my team and unfortunately I concluded I couldn't name Yıldıray in this ideal starting XI. He would be a substitute and that could affect his morale, so I decided to leave him out of our final squad altogether."

Injury struggles
VfB Stuttgart midfielder Yıldıray Baştürk has won 45 caps for Turkey yet made only two appearances in qualifying due to injury, and Terim said the 29-year-old's recent fitness struggles had played a key part in his decision. "Yıldıray missed the most crucial qualifying matches and because of injury he couldn't be with us for a long time," the coach said. "In addition our midfielders Mehmet Topal, Emre Belözoğlu, Mehmet Aurelio and Tümer Metin are in fine form and show a satisfactory performance both in attack and defence."

Strong competition
Terim favours a system whereby his strikers are supported by attacking midfielders such as Arda Turan, Tuncay Şanlı and Gökdeniz Karadeniz and could find no place for FC Schalke 04 forward Halil Altıntop, who has scored five goals in 20 international appearances. Beşiktaş JK defender İbrahim Kaş, meanwhile, has won two caps but failed to impress in last week's friendly against Slovakia and is the victim of strong competition in the Turkey defence. In addition to the trio Terim decided to omit, right-back Gökhan Gönül had already been removed from the squad due to a bruise on the second metatarsal bone of his right foot. 

Turkey squad
Goalkeepers: Volkan Demirel (Fenerbahçe SK), Rüştü Reçber (Beşiktaş JK), Tolga Zengin (Trabzonspor).

Defenders: Sabri Sarıoğlu (Galatasaray AS), Gökhan Zan (Beşiktaş JK), Emre Aşık (Galatasaray AS), Servet Çetin (Galatasaray AS), Hakan Balta (Galatasaray AS), Uğur Boral (Fenerbahçe SK), Emre Güngör (Galatasaray AS).

Midfielders: Mehmet Aurélio (Fenerbahçe SK), Mehmet Topal (Galatasaray AS), Emre Belözoglu (Newcastle United FC), Tümer Metin (Larissa FC), Hamit Altıntop (FC Bayern München), Ayhan Akman (Galatasaray AŞ), Arda Turan (Galatasaray AS), Tuncay Sanlı (Middlesbrough FC), Kazım Kazım (Fenerbahçe SK), Gökdeniz Karadeniz (FC Rubin Kazan).

Forwards: Nihat Kahveci (Villarreal CF), Semih Şentürk (Fenerbahçe SK), Mevlüt Erding (FC Sochaux-Montbéliard).