TR
EN
Hamit Altıntop: "I'm ready to play" 5/24/2008
Hamit Altıntop: "Im ready to play"
Share |

Turkey continues their pre-2008 camp in the small German village Marienfeld with a single training session today at 18.00 CET.

All the players in the squad have participated in the training except Servet Çetin who worked seperately in accordance with his special programme due to his groin injury.

FC Bayern München midfielder Hamit Altıntop made a short statement to the media, by saying: "I have totally recovered from the foot injury. I don't feel pains anymore and I'm ready to play at  the moment. I can say that playing against Portugal in the first match in the group is an advantage. for us. If we play good enough, we can win this game. If we can apply Fatih Terim's tactics on the pitch, then there will be no problems. We will do our utmost in order to be successful."

Galatasaray SK midfielder Mehmet Topal said that the spirit among the Turkish team was perfect. "We have a great camp hotel and everything is positive for us at this stage. Only some slight injury problems makes us feel bad. But when they return, we'll be stronger. We have taken a morale-boosting victory in our first preparation match against Slovakia. I know that the coaching staff was satisfied with our performance there." Mehmet said.

Mehmet also emphasized that even he would understand if coach Fatih Terim decides to leave him out of the final 23-man squad. "Every player wants to be in the national team squad, especially for such a big tournament. To stay out of this squad, would surely upset any player. But even if we feel down, we must put national team's success as top priority. Therefore we must respect the final decision. We are professional players." he continued.

Mehmet Topal sees EURO 2008 as an opportunity to better present himself in the European stage. "All the coaches follow this tournament and when you play some nice football, agents and leading teams gets interested in you. Like every player, I have a target to play for a leading European club." He said.

"Everybody think that Portugal are the favourites of our group but Turkey consists of very talented players who play for various European clubs and are used to playing together. We are powerful and our form graphic is at the top. If we can show team spirit, we can beat Portugal." Topal concluded.

Turkey will play Uruguay in the second friendly match of their Germany camp at 20.30 CET at RewirpowerSTADION in Bochum.




Site Search
Advanced Search
Point Tables