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Arun - May 30, 2021
Turkey vs Guinea
International Friendly
Date: 31 May 2021, Monday
Kick-off 18:00 UK/ 19:00 CET
Venue: Antalya Stadium.
Turkey welcome Guinea for a friendly match to Antalya on Monday to hone their tactics for the European Championship.
They were originally due to face Northern Ireland. But the fixture was called off with Turkey added to the UK Government’s red list for travel.
Senol Gunes will be happy with his team’s current run of form. Turkey extended their unbeaten run in the calendar year 2021 to four games after their heavily rotated squad came from behind to beat Azerbaijan last Thursday.
They could go in as the dark horses for the Euros judging by the way they started their World Cup qualifying campaign in March.
A big win 4-2 against the Netherlands to start off which is complimented by the 3-0 drubbing of Norway.
But they were punished for complacency, a reminder not to take things for granted. They minnows Latvia held them in a 3-3 draw in the final fixture of March.
It was a particularly disappointing result since they were leading 2-0 within 30 minutes and were 3-1 up by the hour mark.
Burak Yilmaz, the veteran striker coming on the back of French Ligue 1 title win with Lille and scoring 16 goals for his club is the player to watch for Turkey this summer. He scored 4 goals for his country in the March round of qualifiers.
Guinea football team is 72 in FIFA rankings, and they are officially meeting a European team in a very long time.
Last time they played a team outside African continent, they lost 2-3 to Chile and this was way back in October 2019.
Anyhow, they enjoyed some moderate continental success in recent years, and made it to round of 16 in 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. They qualified for the 2021 edition as well with a record of 3 wins 2 draws and 1 loss in a group topped by Mali.
Monday’s meeting will be the first ever head-to-head fixture between Turkey and Guinea.
We may see a lot of rotation with Turkey’s playing eleven on Monday. Yet we expect a professional display with momentum a key factor going into a major tournament.
And most of their players are coming on the back of excellent domestic seasons and we have no reason to forecast an upset result here.
Therefore, Turkey to win against Guinea is a straightforward pick, thanks to the high 2.10 odds offered by most bookies.
A lot of goals are not expected here, since Guinea often tend to play a defensive game and create an average 3 scoring chances per game. This is certainly not enough to breach a quality side and the full-time score of 2-0 looks good to me.
