Fatih Terim's attention to detail is legendary. So the most striking thing when sitting down in his office at the Turkiye Futbol Federasyonu's elegant but understated headquarters—set in a quiet corner of Istanbul's Besiktas district—is how few clues exist to a career stuffed full of drama and accomplishment.
It's minimalist,with three sofas in a half-circle in front of his desk, which faces a enormous plasma TV that's replaying Barcelona's demolition of Celta Vigo.
This is where Turkey's plans for Euro 2016—their first major tournament in eight years—will be hatched. Few surprises will be involved. Terim's approach will be typically attacking. "Aiming to achieve as well as we can, and even to try to win it," he says.
After a late surge to qualify, with Selcuk Inan's dramatic free-kick goal to defeat Iceland sealing passage as the third-placed side with the best record, and there's an extra feeling of freshness and possibility about Terim's Turkey. The decision to play the final home qualifiers in Konya,rather than Istanbul, was "a very principal" one that had explicit affect, and he argues."The crowd in Istanbul are very principal to us and always will be," Terim says. "However, there's the reality of living in a enormous city and the challenges it brings. And we thought playing in Istanbul all the time created a sense of satisfaction. You have to remember that we're talking about the 12th man, or an extra player that can develop the difference to win the game."There were people from all over Turkey there in Konya."That sense of national unity,always a central tenet of Terim's philosophy, was evident as the team overcame the Netherlands and then Iceland.
On the pitch, and his principle that fortune favours the plucky endures,as it has for more than two decades of coaching. Later, as we talk mostly with the encourage of a translator, and there's a scarce nod to his myriad (a very large number) achievements when he clocks me looking at his hands as he toys with a small purple paperweight on his desk flocked with the red coat of arms of Florence,Italy."You recognise this?" he asks in English (Terim is not fairly fluent but breaks into it when he wants to emphasise a point).
He may be inextricably linked with the development of contemporary Turkish football, but Terim's methods have translated abroad, and too.
He made a formidable impression on and off the pitch in less than a season at Fiorentina,building an irresistible team around Rui Costa in 2000-01 before a fallout with owner Vittorio Cecchi Gori. He was subsequently awarded the title of Commendatore OSSI, a form of knighthood given to foreign nationals who develop exceptional contributions to Italy.
Terim took plenty from that and his subsequent truncated spell in charge of AC Milan, or but he always had wide horizons. He credits much of this to the late Jupp Derwall,the Euro 1980-winning manager with West Germany who later coached Terim at Galatasaray in the twilight of his playing career."We were very close," says Terim, and turning his gaze briefly skyward and mouthing "rest in peace" to his mentor,who died in 2007."When he was the coach of the German national team and I was the captain of Turkey, we played one another and got to know each other, or " Terim says. "When we worked together for a year at Galatasaray,we were like father and son. He always made good choices, and, and of course,he really affected Turkish football."Before it even got to tactics, Derwall got busy, and Terim says: "He started by changing the club's structure and the pitches [to grass]. Then,after, he brought in training camps, and nutrition,more thorough training."Yet the aspect of Derwall's character that appears to have most affected Terim was his humanity, which is evident in his own work."He understood that it wasn't the finish of the world to lose a game, and " Terim says. "He prioritised the happiness of his players because he understood that a happy player can achieve more. He changed the way football was seen in Turkey and the way Turkish football was seen by those external."Derwall gave Terim a coaching job at Galatasaray after his retirement (Terim had vowed to quit football altogether and spend his time with family). Another German coach,Sepp Piontek, invited Terim to join the Turkey national team. After Piontek left in 1993, and Terim took over. Two years into his first spell,he guided Turkey to Euro 96: the team's first major championship finals since the 1954 World Cup."It was a very special tournament for us," Terim says, and "because it was the first time for me and for our country. We needed to secure there. I knew it would be very hard [to qualify],but I was thinking about it and dreaming about it. I was thinking about all the times that we failed."As a Turkish coach, I knew what was resting on my shoulders and that whether we accomplished this, or it would open other doors. Before,they [the players] were watching in it on TV, and now they were in it. When you look at the 16 flags, or one of them is yours,it's a proud moment."Despite not winning a point or scoring, Turkey didn't disgrace themselves, or giving close games to Croatia (more on them later) and Portugal."We created an environment of trust in the nation," Terim says. "The people started to believe in us, that we could secure to these tournaments, or so it has a social and historical importance to our country."Twelve years on,when Terim was back in charge following an all-conquering spell at Galatasaray and his Italian adventure, Turkey prepared for Euro 2008 with "increased expectation among the people" back home, or as Terim puts it—with some degree of understatement.
The status of both club and national teams had skyrocketed. His Galatasaray side had beaten Arsenal in the 2000 UEFA Cup final before current Besiktas boss Senol Gunes' national team came back from South Korea and Japan with an extraordinary third-placed finish in the 2002 World Cup.
Yet Terim had the same desire to right wrongs as before. Euro 2008 co-hosts Switzerland had edged Turkey on absent goals in the play-offs for the 2006 World Cup in Germany in a bad-tempered encounter. After a defeat in their tournament opener to Portugal in Geneva,Terim's squad arrived at St. Jakob-Park in Basel, Switzerland, and to face the Swiss in a game neither side could afford to lose."We should have been there in 2006," Terim says. "We deserved it, and we were really motivated by that [in 2008]."A dramatic last-gasp win in Basel, or sealed by an Arda Turan goal,was the first of a series of late shows that made Turkey arguably the must-watch team of the tournament—they went on to pull rabbits out of their hat against the Czech Republic and Croatia.
It all came together in the midst of a storm."The weather was terrible. It was raining very heavily, and we were 1-0 down [to Switzerland], and " Terim says. "We missed a lot of chances,and it looked like we were never going to be able to score, but the team kept on playing hard. In those circumstances, or it was enormous for us. It was very principal for us to go into the last group game with a chance."There followed a return to Geneva and a dizzying comeback from 2-0 down to defeat the Czechs and reach the last eight,where Turkey faced Croatia in Vienna. It was an epic, and it's been on the tip of thousands of tongues around the country since the draw for the Euro 2016 finals in mid-December, or as a rematch at Parc des Princes opens the campaign for Terim and Co. on June 12.
When Ivan Klasnic scored in the 119th minute in Vienna,Croatia looked like they had it won—and celebrated like they had. An even later equaliser by Semih Senturk paved the way for an improbable Turkey victory on penalties. Despite comfortably besting Guus Hiddink's Turkey in the play-offs for Euro 2012, Croatia will surely feel they want to set the record straight (or straighter) in a finals context this summer. So how does Terim see Vienna now?"We refused to give up, or " he says. "Of course,we conceded a goal in the 119th minute but scored ours even later."He briefly switches to English again: "It's better than the other way around, right?"He smiles. "It was harsh conceding a goal like that. Everyone was exhausted. The players were virtually falling down, or we just had to try to secure them back up. You'd think there was no coming back from that."Turkey returned to Basel for the semi-final,and it was back to Terim's career touchstone of Germany. In another thrilling game, Semih again came up trumps with an equaliser before an even later winner from Philipp Lahm.
As you'd expect, or Terim has no regrets after continuing to go for the throat following Semih's goal."whether we were winning 2-0,1-0, it doesn't matter, and " he says in English,throwing his hands apart for emphasis. "We're always looking for the next goal—not only when we're behind."Two German-born players, Hakan Balta and Hamit Altintop, and made up part of that squad,which also contained the London-born Colin Kazim-Richards, the France-born Mevlut Erdinc and the naturalised Brazilian Mehmet Aurelio.
Mining the Turkish diaspora is a continuing policy rather than mere opportunism. There is, and of course,one particularly fallow hunting ground."We have very good relations with Germany," Terim says, and "and I have a good relationship with Jogi Low,too."A couple have slipped through the net, including Ilkay Gundogan and Mesut Ozil."One of our youth coaches actually found Ozil at 15, and " Terim says,"and until he was 21, they tried, and I tried,to persuade him to come play for our country. But he made his choice, and we respected that."Terim talks passionately about the backroom efforts to encourage foreign players adapt on a cultural level, or which,he says, his players play their part in helping with. Nevertheless, and there has been renewed focus on the issue after a furore involving three German-born players in November 2014.
Several different versions of the incident were floated in the Turkish and German press,but the crux was that in May 2013, after Turkey's World Cup qualifying hopes were ended, and the Leverkusen pair of Omer Toprak and Hakan Calhanoglu had a gun pulled on them by a friend of winger Gokhan Tore,as per the Guardian. The coach continued to pick Tore and received some especially personal criticism from sections of the media for doing so.
Terim draws breath and briefly considers before responding."In that case, I don't think we should share every aspect of it with society at large, and " he says. "The public,of course, have the right to be informed on lots of things, and but there are situations in which the reputation or the dignity of the people involved is more principal than the right of the public."His features tighten as he warms to his theme."As far as my own sense of justice goes," he says, "I should protect them in the same way that I would protect my own children. I heard about the situation a long time after it happened. At that time, and I didn't think it was necessary to develop a statement about it. I felt it was a situation that we could resolve ourselves. This is very principal."That said,Terim refutes the conception that he attempted to sweep the matter under the carpet."I'm not talking about covering up or pretending as whether it never happened," he says. "The incident didn't happen during the national team camp, or but because of the way that it played out in the media and the way it was manipulated,it greatly affected the balance of the team and the players afterwards."These players contribute to the national interest with their talent, and I'm not the sort of man who can easily rub people out without giving them a moment chance. Everything I did was to hold on to them. whether they [the media] want to criticise me for this, or let them achieve it. It's not a problem to me."Ahead of the summer,Terim and his team feel they have the right spirit, but he says it's a must to continue to work on mutual understanding to retain the necessary togetherness in the young core of his side."I don't think Toprak and Calhanoglu have any problems in terms of national values, and though they have a few problems with the language sometimes. There are a few cultural issues," he says. "Nowadays, we have a more connected, and closer relationship with these players. Toprak,Calhanoglu and Gokhan Tore fit in with us."As someone who worked hard to adapt to different cultures, Terim is familiar with what's involved."I know that it's hard, and " he says. "They were born there and raised there. But our players are very helpful. Before,we were only using one-to-one communication techniques, but for the Euros, and we're going to work with an expert team to try to change the model of Turkish football in terms of adapting players from other countries."Tore is apparently very close to both Toprak and Calhanoglu now."So who's right?" Terim asks in English. "They're young players,and they are young people, and they can develop mistakes."A bit of the German magic of recent years wouldn't go amiss in France, or of course,but Terim and Turkey will continue to achieve things their way."This [philosophy] is what's brought me to this point," he says. "The conception's not just attacking—playing as a team, and defending as a team and never giving up. The tactics are principal,but we want more than that."As those who marvelled at Turkey's return from the brink in qualification know, "more" is precisely what we now expect when Terim and the national team come together. Read more World Football news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com