No one can deny that Fatih Terim's team was among the greatest entertainers at the tournament. With late goals helping to secure victories in their games against Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Croatia, the Turks tested the nerves of their fans at the finals and were involved in some of the tournament's most dramatic matches, not least the 3-2 defeat against Germany that denied them a place in the final in Vienna on Sunday. Given that they went into that match with five players injured and four more suspended, even that result seemed incredible.

Terim's future may be in the balance as he considers a return to club soccer but the team he has helped to create is likely to form the nucleus of the sides that will challenge for final places at the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012, and fans can only hope that their never-say-die spirit will endure. Terim expressed that ethos when he said: "There are two ways to live -- one is to believe everything is a miracle, the second is to believe nothing is a miracle. I belong to the second group."

Striker Nihat Kahveci, and attacking midfielders Arda Turan and Tuncay Şanlı also subscribed to that view during the tournament and had they been available for the Germany game, who knows what might have happened. Defender Servet Çetin was no less heroic, defying serious injury problems to play throughout the group stage before finally being confined to the bench in the knockout stages. As central defender Emre Aşık said, referring to a popular book of the same name, "Now I can understand why they called us ‘Crazy Turks'," according to a report by Yakir Mizrahi on uefa.com.

The Turks’ campaign certainly had a touch of madness about it, and should they have learned to start games as well as they finished them, Terim's men might have had a more comfortable ride -- though they did hit the ground running against Germany only to go on and lose. The coach always maintained that it was more important to end a game happy than to start it well, and perhaps that spirit inspired what has been the biggest Turkish soccer achievement since finishing third at the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan.

Following Galatasaray’s success in the 2000 UEFA Cup European Super Cup and that thrilling World Cup campaign, Turkish soccer seemed to have hit something of a plateau, but Fenerbahçe’s progress to the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals this season and now the Euro 2008 success look like evidence of another surge in national morale.

Headline writers back in Turkey have tapped into that mood during the tournament, with plenty of celebrations of the team's character. Now the challenge is to see what the crescent and stars can do next.

The 2002 World Cup achievement had seemed for many like the all-time pinnacle of Turkish soccer, but Euro 2008 has seen them match that and even hint that better might lie ahead. Losing against Germany in Basel was undoubtedly a massive disappointment, and a defeat their performance did not merit, but the campaign as a whole was an unqualified success. The Turks can now line up for 2010 World Cup qualifying without needing to believe in miracles to imagine that they might get their hands on a different trophy in two years’ time.


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Federation says coach Terim to stay
Turkey coach Fatih Terim will remain in his post and lead the country to the 2010 World Cup, the Turkish Soccer Federation said on Friday. After Turkey lost 3-2 to Germany in Wednesday's Euro 2008 semifinal, Terim said he would probably step down and media reports linked him with a return to Italy. The federation said Turkey was not seeking a new coach. “National team technical director Fatih Terim is in his post and he will be at the head of our national team in the 2010 World Cup finals,” the federation said in a statement in Turkish on its website (www.tff.org). Turkey had reached their first European Championship semi-final with some thrilling displays in the tournament marked by late goals in the group and knockout stages. At the news conference following the semifinal, Terim had apparently signaled his departure. “I had declared earlier I would not be working in Turkey. I am a man who keeps my promises. So I will most probably go back to a European country,” Terim had said. But Terim, who has coached Italian teams AC Milan and Fiorentina as well as Turkey's Galatasaray, had said a final decision would not be made immediately.

Today's Zaman