Germany rode their luck before beating a weakened Turkey side 3-2 in an action-packed semi-final in Basel.Joachim Low's side produced a disjointed performance but won through to Sunday's Final thanks to Philipp Lahm's stoppage-time goal.
But the Turks, who have been the last-gasp heroes of this tournament having come back from the dead to beat Switzerland, Czech Republic and Croatia, were the better side virtually from the first whistle and were desperately unfortunate to lose the game.
Turkey were without four suspended players while Nihat Kahveci was injured. Germany were unchanged from the side that beat Portugal 3-2 in last week's quarter-final victory with Thomas Hitzlsberger keeping his place in the starting line-up ahead of Torsten Frings.
The Germans started the match very poorly and in the 14th minute sloppy defending allowed Colin Kazim-Richards to last a shot against the bar with Jens Lehmann beaten.
Turkey deservedly took the lead midway through the first half. Kazim-Richards' looping shot hit the bar but Boral Ugur was on hand to turn a mis-hit shot through Lehmann's legs and over the line.
However, against the run of play, Germany were level in the 26th minute when Lukas Podolski whipped in a cross and Bastian Schweinsteiger flicked a shot home.
On the half-hour in an incredibly open game, Lehmann was forced to save the unmarked Senturk Semih's looping header.
The Turks continued to dominate and Hamit Altintop's over-hit free-kick almost caught Lehmann out, the veteran keeper being forced to tip the ball over the bar for a corner.
When Germany responded Podolski found himself clean through as he beat the offside trap, but the Bayern Munich man fired over the bar.
As play swung from one end to the other Sarioglu Sabri, in acres of space, lashed a shot over Lehmann's goal.
The second half continued in a similar vein with Turkey dominating possession and Germany struggling to string two passes together.
In the 52nd minute Germany should have had a penalty when Lahm was upended in the area by Sabri but the referee, amazingly, waved play on.
The match seemed to be heading for extra-time but, with 11 minutes left, Germany took the lead when Lahm's cross was missed by Recber Rustu and Miroslav Klose had the simple task of heading the ball into the empty net.
Amazingly Turkey hit back and equalised in the 86th minute when Sabri beat Lahm and crossed for Semih at the near post to flick a shot past Lehmann.
There was more drama to come though as, with the match moving into stoppage time, Lahm beat Kazim-Richards, played a neat one-two and then blasted a shot past Rustu.
It was an incredible end to an amazing match but this time there was to be no happy outcome for the battling Turks.
22′ 0 - 1 Ugur Boral scores from the rebound.
14′ Colin Kazim-Richards hits the crossbar with a superb one touch shot.
26′ 1 - 1 Bastian Schweinsteiger equalizes with a great execution.
81′ 2 - 1 Miroslav Klose heads the ball into the net after a Rustu error.
86′ 2 - 2 Semith Senturk equalizes for Turkey with a clever execution.
90′ 3 - 2 Philipp Lahm scores the winning goal for Germany.
Germany Vs Turkey 1st Semi-final Full Main Highlights(20:15 min)
Germany 3 - 2 Turkey
22′ [0 - 1] U. Boral
26′ B. Schweinsteiger [1 - 1]
79′ M. Klose [2 - 1]
86′ [2 - 2] S. Senturk
90′ P. Lahm [3 - 2]
Match Statistics
shots on target : 3 - 10
shots off target : 4 - 9
possession (%) : 46 - 54
corner kicks : 2 - 8
offsides : 0 - 1
fouls : 14 - 16
yellow cards : 0 - 1
red cards : 0 - 0
Germany: Lehmann, Friedrich, Mertesacker, Metzelder, Lahm, Hitzlsperger, Rolfes (Frings 46), Schweinsteiger, Ballack, Podolski, Klose (Jansen 90).
Subs Not Used: Enke, Adler, Fritz, Westermann, Gomez, Neuville, Trochowski, Borowski, Odonkor, Kuranyi.
Goals: Schweinsteiger 27, Klose 79, Lahm 90.
Turkey: Rustu, Sarioglu, Topal, Zan, Balta, Aurelio, Kazim-Richards (Metin 90), Altintop, Akman (Erdinc 81), Boral (Karadeniz 84), Senturk.
Subs Not Used: Zengin, Cetin, Emre, Gungor, Nihat.
Booked: Senturk.
Goals: Boral 22, Senturk 86.
Att: 40,000
Ref: Massimo Busacca (Switzerland).
2 comments:
OMG! thank you soooo much for posting these in depth highlights! I taped the game on ESPN 2 instead of just ESPN today and was so sad when i realized i missed it. I didn't just want the 30 second highlights. SO THANKS
Thanks you very much for these hightlights! Appearantly there was some sort of electrical storm which cut the picture in my country.
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