Turkish national team going great guns

The writers here at "The round ball in Ankara" steer well clear of reports about the Turkish national team. Whenever asked I say that it is because as yabancilar we would rather not get involved in arguments about the Milli Takim. The real truth is that we don't know anything about the national side and are too lazy to find out.

But I'd like to point out that the Amputee World Championships are being held in Antalya at the moment. Turkey is doing very well. They qualified second from their group after victories over the English, French and Liberians, losing only to the Russians, before defeating Iran 1-0 in the quarter-finals.

Today they take on Uzbekistan with the winner up against either Russia or Brazil in the final.

NTV had a pretty good report after the victory over England but since then I've seen bugger all news about the championships. The Turkish Football Federation have a page of results, but that's it... no photos, no reports.

So I was happy to see that today's Hurriyet had quite a large story titled "Our warriors in the semi-final dance".

It was a typical Hurriyet football piece, i.e. rubbish, but at least it was actually in there, although what the hell it was doing in the main part of the paper and not on the sports pages I have no idea.

The tournament has been very poorly promoted by the host country. Crowds numbers are terrible. Why not go to the local schools, hand out tickets, get the kiddies to bring along their Turkish flags and sing away.

After all, the football on display is bloody good, the highlights I saw on the telly were certainly better than the crap we have been served up by Genclerbirligi recently, and with Turkey playing so well there is plenty for a local crowd to enjoy.

What is the point of this post? I'm not sure. But I wish the Turkish team the very best of luck today.

EDIT: Seems as if I put the mockers on the Turkish team as they went down 2-1 this morning. Still, a good tournament performance and well done to all involved.

EDIT: Tuesday morning. Turkey defeated Brazil 1-0 in the third place play-off.