The trend continues: Arda Güler has little-to-no-help, Türkiye continues to create chances, Türkiye’s continues to misses chances, and Türkiye continues to spiral defensively.
That’s three straight losses now for Vincenzo Montella, and along the way, they’ve been outscored 8-1, sitting dead last in Group A of the UEFA Nations League.
Güler doesn’t deserve the blame, though, and the general consensus is that he’s been a bit of a one man show through these three games. He was one of the best players
on the field vs France, had an incredible second half vs Italy, and his wizardry continued tonight against Belgium in a 3-0 loss.
Tonight’s match was back-and-forth and very easy on the eyes if you’re a neutral. Belgium and Türkiye took turns taking punches throughout the 90 minutes, and what essentially separated the two teams for the majority of this game was: Poor finishing from Türkiye, and two throwback golazos from Kevin de Bruyne.
Güler’s touches and verticality under pressure were so good in this game, that even the Belgium fans audibly groaned at some of the stuff he was doing.
Güler played as a right central midfielder on paper, but behind the ball, he formed one of the two forwards in a 4-4-2 through stretches of this game. Primarily, though, he operated on the right half space, while roaming as a 10 horizontally just outside of Belgium’s box. He had eight shots — seven of them outside the box and the one from inside was after some great dribbling past his man to create space from a tight angle.
Güler ended the game with the most key passes of anyone on the field (five), the most completed dribbles (five), and drew the most fouls (six).
Türkiye’s next game is against Italy on October 5th.
