Çörekçi pride in Turkey's farewell flourish

Kamil Çörekçi was reflecting on a costly slow start as Turkey bowed out of the UEFA European Under-19 Championship despite concluding their finals campaign with an impressive display against Spain.

Kemal Özdeş' side overran the Group B winners to record a 3-0 victory in Chiajna, Çörekçi scoring the second goal, but it proved insufficient to overhaul Serbia, who edged out Turkey by virtue of a 2-0 win against them on Matchday 1. "There's some disappointment because before the tournament we were one of the fancied teams to win the competition," Çörekçi told UEFA.com. "We showed everybody how good we are today. If we had got through, we would still be favourites."

Turkey were given a helping hand along the way, a much-changed Spain team scoring own goals through Jonás Ramalho and Sergi Gómez, yet Çörekçi feels his team's overall display deserved that fortune. "Tonight we showed everyone what we are made of," the Bucaspor defender added. "We played our own game and won 3-0. Our opponents weren't at full strength but Spain are Spain, they never change the way they play and are always passing the ball, taking their time.

"We defended well, especially in the second half, and got two more goals. I played a part in the first one and scored the second, but I wasn’t the game's key player. The whole team's performance was the key tonight. We passed the ball well, we fought and pressed as a unit."

The right-back acknowledged that Turkey had left themselves too much to do on Matchday 3, adding: "We played well against Serbia but they took their chances. Against Belgium, we were quite unlucky. Our confidence was a little bit lower than usual because of the Serbia game, but we dominated the match, even before Belgium were reduced to ten men. However, they scored in the last minute; that's football but it's disappointing for us."

Although left to rue their fortune overall, there was considerable pride in the way Turkey had brought down the curtain on their time in Romania. "Before the match, I talked to the players as captain and we agreed to show how good we are against Spain, even if we failed to advance into the semi-finals, and we managed that," skipper Muhammet Demir told UEFA.com.

"We never made the mistake of underestimating our opponents but we were far from our real selves in the first two matches. If we had played our football, we would have deserved to win the tournament. I am very confident in my team-mates, we were the best team here and we showed how good we were in the end."