Euro 2012 Qualifying: Turkey Vs. Austria, Northern Ireland Vs. Slovenia Are The Important Tuesday Fixtures

I’ve been told that Northern Ireland and Slovenia were playing a qualifying match for the Euro 2012 football tournament today. I’m assuming that, for a team to qualify for said football tournament, the qualification procedure would involve playing some football. I guess they could pick the teams for the tournament by playing darts, or having a pie eating contest, but it seems likely that playing football would be preferable. So, I fired up my computer and found a (totally legal!) feed of the contest in question. Much to my surprise, I didn’t see a whole lot of football being played.

Okay, all jokes aside, the match between Northern Ireland and Slovenia wasn’t very good. This shouldn’t be all that surprising, seeing as both teams play very defensive and rigid styles. The thing is, in the cases of both teams, their opponents usually get really frustrated, start cheating on defense, and then are susceptible on the counter-attack. When they play each other, no such thing happens. So, we just got to watch two teams defend and kick long balls for a while. Slovenia tried to play some creative attacking football at times, once they realized that Northern Ireland were never coming out of their shell, in addition to being an inferior side. They just weren’t that good at it.

Unless your idea of football is ankle injuries and dudes getting elbowed in the face, you probably wouldn’t find the Euro 2012 qualifying match between Northern Ireland and Slovenia to be particularly entertaining. It’s been kind of crap, to be honest, but it’s not like anything more should have been expected from these two teams. Slovenia play a very rigid and defensive style of football, while Northern Ireland are simply not very good going forward.

After their loss to Italy, Slovenia are in need of a win here. Serbia will be climbing up the Group C table, and they’re currently 1-0 up on Estonia. Slovenia have good forward-thinking players, even with the injury to Josep Ilicic, and their back line should be able to handle the Northern Ireland attack without a whole lot of defensive assistance from the midfield. They will lack ambition in the second half at their own peril.

Guus Hiddink promised to resign as Turkey’s manager if his side didn’t seal a victory today, but he won’t have to do that. His side is very much in contention for second place in Group A of Euro 2012 qualifying after a 2-0 home win against Austria. Turkey were superior to their visitors in every way, and both of their goals were absolutely class. Arda Turan scored the opener in the 28th minute, weaving two defenders and finishing from 15 yards out after a throw-in, while Gokhan Gonul scored the second goal in the 77th minute with a great left-footed shot to the near post, assisted by Semih Senturk.

Turkey’s main rivals for second place in the group, now that they’ve taken all three points from Austria, will be Belgium. They’re in a match that they should win against Azerbaijan, and if they do take all three points, they will maintain a slight points advantage over Turkey, though the Turks have a game in hand. At the time of this posting, Belgium is ahead, but they did have to deal with a scare when Azerbaijan scored a surprise goal.

Before a couple of disastrous league campaigns for Galatasaray, Arda Turan was one of the hottest properties in world football. Or at least, according to various blogs and rags. In any event, he’s become less of a coveted commodity in recent years, thanks to Galatasaray’s fall from grace and Turkey’s inability to qualify for the 2010 World Cup has reduced his value a bit. After watching the goal that he just scored against Austria to put his team ahead in their Euro 2012 qualifying match, it’s difficult to understand why.

The goal was assisted by a brilliant throw-in, combined with a terrible lapse in concentration by the Austrian defense. The throw went to Turan on the left wing, and he did well to turn it into a scoring chance. He cut inside from the left onto his right foot, beating a couple of defenders in the process. This set him up for a shooting opportunity from about 12 yards away from goal, and he finished well to give Turkey the lead.