Turkey's National Football Team Coach Vincenzo Montella made statements at a press conference held after the lost match against Paraguay at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium. Montella said, "The Turkish people had great expectations, I am experiencing a huge disappointment."
The Italian coach expressed satisfaction with his players' performance but stated that luck was not on their side. Montella said, "Looking at it objectively, I have no negative thoughts about my players, they have developed their talents even more today because they showed great performance in both matches, unfortunately the opposing teams got results with very few chances against 65 shots."
Montella's Fate Commentary
Montella said they experienced two rare matches back-to-back in his career. "In my 35-year career, matches that would occur once in 50 games happened twice in a row. Fate was not on our side, our players did everything they could, we are very sorry." he stated.
Responding to a question about the lack of forwards, Montella reminded that they took a total of 65 shots in two matches but could not score. "We go, it doesn't happen, the opponent comes once and it happens. We entered the opponent's penalty area, took shots, our balls went over the posts, if fate is not on your side..." he said.
Call for the National Team's Future
Montella emphasized that the national team must participate in tournaments regularly. "There is only one thing we need to do from now on, to participate in tournaments continuously. Because we cannot participate continuously, something may have held back our players even subconsciously. Our national team needs to go to tournaments regularly." he assessed.
Players Also Apologized
Defender Merih Demiral took full responsibility for the results. Demiral stated, "We are very sad. I apologize to the Turkish people for upsetting them. There is nothing else to say. I don't know what to say, such moments can happen in football. We apologize to everyone."
Kerem Aktürkoğlu similarly expressed his sorrow and said the responsibility was theirs. Aktürkoğlu said, "A quality team like ours should have gotten the desired result with the good football it would play. We couldn't achieve that. There's nothing to say, we are sorry."
Paraguay Coach Alfaro's Assessment
Paraguay National Team Coach Gustavo Alfaro said they knew how to win the match. Alfaro stated, "We knew how we could win against Turkey and we won. Turkey had much more possession, they had many more scoring chances. You can say the result is fair or not, the opposing team could not use its numerical advantage very well."
Alfaro expressed that his team did not want to end their 16-year World Cup dream in 7 days and that they succeeded in this.
