The passion of Turkish football fans is famous, sometimes infamous, but to see that emotion distilled into a few seconds is something else.
On Tuesday night, the Turks knew that they had a chance of qualifying automatically for Euro 2016 by the skin of the teeth. But it was a largely tense and frustrating evening.
The best third placed team would qualify, along with each of the first and second placed teams in each group, and avoid the lottery of the play-offs. Turkey were in the mix.
But with moments of their game with already qualified Iceland remaining, the Turks still hadn’t broken the deadlock in front of a nervous home crowd.
Then, on the 89th minute, Selcuk Inan did this…
It was an incredible moment of skill, nerve and passion. The crowd and players alike went crazy, but even at the final whistle, no one could be certain that Turkey had secured automatic qualification.
But as the players and coaching staff waited patiently on the pitch for news from elsewhere, reports filtered through from other games that everything had gone to plan – they had done it. Cue unbridled ecstacy…
The scenes were epic – from the players and fans dancing and embracing in sheer delight, to the manager, Fatih Terim, striding about in his dandy waistcoat like a veteran snooker player who’d just managed a 147 break.
Absolute scenes.
