Turkey's World Cup hopes came crashing down to the dust on Saturday, first as Bosnia and Herzegovina trumped Estonia to boost its hold on second place in the group standings and then in a humiliating 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Belgians at King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels.
Coach Fatih Terim announced after the loss that he would step down after Wednesday night's match against Armenia in Bursa.
By the time they started suiting up in Brussels, the Turkish side had learned that Bosnia, ranked number two in the group and four points ahead of Turkey, was leading Estonia 1-0, but the Turks already had to win no matter what, so the score in a match still under way didn't make a critical difference.
Everyone knew their fate rested only partially in their own hands and that making the numbers add up to a chance at qualifying depended on a chain of wins for them and losses for others. But it's quite another thing to learn that your chances are nil. Coach Terim said word of Bosnia's win over Estonia thus fell like a bombshell in the locker room at halftime during the national squad's match against Belgium. Still, champions don't make excuses like that.
All this disappointment comes just two years after the announcement of team groupings for Europe made Turks ecstatic. Talk about a hat-trick, the names that came out of the hat to disclose the composition of Group 5 looked like proof of divine love. How could we fail to qualify against second-rate powers like Bosnia, Estonia, Belgium and Armenia? Spain, OK, we could accept them as respectable second-place finishers, even grant them the group lead if absolutely necessary.
Now Spain has gone undefeated in the qualifying round, winning all nine of its games, while Turkey has shown remarkably lackluster performance for a would-be king. So how did it all come to this, that Turks must participate in next year's tournament in South Africa only as spectators? Soccer fans across the country are trying to understand what went wrong with Turkey's bid to qualify for the World Cup. Can we blame the coach? Was it fate? Bad luck?
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