Moral victory for Turkiye? World Cup captain forgets how football works after Socceroos loss

There have been plenty of salty reactions to the Socceroos’ stunning 2-0 win over Turkiye in Vancouver. 

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But one of the more curious has come from Turkiye captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu who may well have been an English cricket captain in a past life.

Pre-game Çalhanoğlu boldy declared his team would dominate the Aussies and after the humbling defeat he was sticking to his guns, perhaps still in a state of shock at a result which sees Turkiye’s World Cup hopes precariously placed after just one match.

“We dominated today, Australia was just behind, defending good,” the Inter Milan star told journalists after the match.

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“Two long goals, they scored, it was our mistakes,” he continued.

“If you control all the game the whole 90 minutes and you don’t score… it means you have to always be focused.

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“I think we did a good game, just we didn’t score.”

Indeed, Turkiye did not score despite having 30 shots on goal compared with just 8 from Australia, such was the quality of the Socceroos’ impenetrable defence.

So sorry about this Hakan, but there are no moral victories in the World Cup, no prizes for possession — it’s goals that matter and on that rather important metric, well, one team dominated and they were in gold jerseys, not red.

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Next up for the Socceroos comes the USA on Saturday morning Australian time, with hopefully a little more humility on display from the co-hosts, if not their media.

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