So here we go another month of football ahead of us, throw in some decent weather and it should be a good summer. As with the previous World Cup and Euro's I'll stick the threads up the day before kick off with the exception of some of the bigger games like an England match which might go up a little sooner. A thread for each match otherwise 1 game dominates the end of day chat. Use the general Euro thread for any unrelated chat.
Turkey v Italy
Friday 11th June 2021
Kick off 20:00 (BST) at the Stadio Olimpico (capacity at 25%, 17,500) in Rome, Italy.
Referee: Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)
Coverage begins at 19:00 (BST) on BBC 1. Presented by Gary Lineker, analysis from Alan Shearer, Rio Ferdinand & Thierry Henry (although Henry will be replaced with someone else given his Belgium duties). Commentary from Guy Mowbray and Jermaine Jenas.
Andrea Bocelli will be singing Nessum Dorma before the game tonight.
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TURKEY
Turkey’s opening game versus Italy is about as hard as it gets, up against one of the tournaments favourites in Rome! However, they come into this game in great form with 4 wins and 2 draws in their last 6 games, including an impressive win in a World Cup qualifier vs the Netherlands back in March:
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They currently sit top of their world cup qualifying group with 7 points, 1 point ahead of the Netherlands. They will hope to do better at Euro 2020 than they did at Euro 2016, where they finished 3rd in the group behind Croatia and Spain, missing out on being one of the best 3rd placed teams. This time around they definitely look more solid and I watched the Turkey-Netherlands game back in March, they've got the players to cause an upset.
Their players to look out for include:
- Çağlar Söyüncü who has had a hit and miss season for Leicester.
- Zeki Çelik, the first of 3 Turks who was a prominent feature in Lille’s title winning side.
- Okay Yokuşlu who joined West Brom on loan from Celta in January and finished the season alright.
- Hakan Çalhanoğlu ,set piece specialist who helped AC Milan qualify for the Champions League.
- Yusuf Yazıcı, a goalscoring midfielder who helped Lille to the French League title.
- Burak Yılmaz, the captain, who had a great season scoring 16 goals in 28 league games as he fired Lille to the title.
Full Squad:
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ITALY
Bluemoon’s 3rd favourites behind France and Portugal. Italy couldn’t have really asked for a better start, essentially a home game, in a group they should win, with them playing the runner up of Austria, Netherlands, North Macedonia or Ukraine, if they win this group. Quite a few blues might be rooting for them due to Roberto Mancini being in charge.
They too come into this in great form, they are 27 games unbeaten, you must go back to September 2018 for their last loss (vs Portugal in the Nations League). That said, the only big hitters they’ve faced during that time are the Netherlands twice and Portugal, winning once and drawing twice. Their form is 2021 looks like:
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They too sit top of their World Cup qualifying group. Like most big teams it should be quarter-final minimum for them, especially with their tournament pathway.
Most people will know their best players, so if I was to pick a player slightly under the radar it would be Nicolò Barella, the Inter Milan player was vital to their midfield this season as he won his first Serie A title and Inter’s first league title since 2010.
Full Squad:
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