Euro 2024’s true dark horses step into the light as Turkey stun Austria to reach quarter-finals

Turkey were supposed to be Euro 2020’s dark horses. Maybe everyone whose predictions looked hideously bad when they crashed out with no points and a lone goal merely got the wrong tournament. Three years later they are quarter-finalists, with a plausible route to the final. If Austria were perhaps the best side of the group stages, Spain apart, they were swept out of Euro 2024 by Vincenzo Montella’s team, subjected to an assault on the eardrums from Turkey’s fervent support. And caving in at corners.

If a player from the Saudi Pro-League was going to score twice in a Euro 2024 game, few had thought it would be Merih Demiral. The centre-back succeeded where Cristiano Ronaldo failed. In a sense, he did the Thuram double; like Lilian Thuram in 1998, an irregular scorer mustered a potentially career-defining brace. Demiral had two goals in 47 caps. He doubled that tally inside an hour of his 48th.

In the process, he rendered himself a record-breaker. Turkey took Austria’s superpower and appropriated it. Ralf Rangnick’s team were the fast starters, the side who usually scored in the first 10 minutes. Turkey scored in the first one, Demiral’s 58-second strike the quickest ever in the knockout stages of the European Championship and, coincidentally, the earliest Austria had conceded since a 1965 trip to Leipzig.

It was a horrible goal to concede. That both of Demiral’s double came from corners was still more damning, even if Austria’s response suggested neither side could defend set-pieces. Austria’s soft underbelly cost them. Ralf Rangnick has spent the tournament alternating between his centre-backs but Kevin Danso was static in the box as Demiral soared above him to head what proved the decider. For Turkey, the wunderkind Arda Guler had the audacity to shoot from 50 yards, if not the accuracy to score, but his contribution came not with flair but set-piece delivery that troubled Austria.

This had some of the hallmarks of Rangnick’s group-stage triumphs over Poland and the Netherlands. Austria launched twin offensives, one after conceding so early, the other lasting most of the second half. Back at a ground he knows well from his time in charge of RB Leipzig, he again made influential substitutions. Michael Gregoritsch came off the bench to score and delivered a marauding display of old-fashioned centre-forward’s play. But in a game that was fast, frenetic and ferocious, perhaps they found their match in a team who deal in chaos anyway.

Turkey have plotted an idiosyncratic path into their first quarter-final for 16 years, including the most comical own goal of the tournament, courtesy of Samet Akaydin against Portugal, and statistically the dirtiest game in the competition’s history, with 16 bookings and two dismissals when they clashed with Czechia. Turkey, it is safe to say, don’t do normal.

And once again, neither did Leipzig, a wonderful city that has had a dramatic tournament. A ball had barely been kicked here since Mattia Zaccagni’s 98th-minute equaliser for Italy against Croatia when there was further extraordinary events. Austria do everything quickly. Sadly for them, that included conceding. Guler’s corner caused confusion, Christoph Baumgartner clearing off the line but only into Stefan Posch, meaning Patrick Pentz had to parry. Demiral ended the penalty-box pinball by lifting a shot into the roof of the net from two yards.

His second goal was more conventional, Demiral jumping above Danso to head in. In between and thereafter, much of the goalmouth action occurred when Austria attacked. Irrepressible and elusive, Baumgartner had almost levelled inside three minutes with an angled drive. He nearly forced the ball in after a fifth-minute corner. Two Turkey midfielders were booked for halting him in distinctly illegal ways. He came agonisingly close to levelling deep in added time, a header brilliantly clawed away by Mert Gunok. It was a sensational save, among the best of the tournament.

It was required in part because of Gregoritsch’s impact. He transformed the game, a presence in attack also enabling others to threaten. Marko Arnautovic was released behind the Turkey defence but was denied by Gunok. Konrad Laimer waltzed through the Turkish defence but shot wide. Then Gregoritsch prodded in after Marcel Sabitzer’s corner was headed on by Stefan Posch.

It required a spirited rearguard action from Turkey. The rampaging left-back Ferdi Kadıoglu had a fine game. There was some desperate defending. They prevailed without the suspended captain Hakan Calhanoglu. They lacked control; but given these two teams, perhaps no one could have calmed proceedings down anyway.

And so it is Turkey, semi-finalists in Euro 2008, who can eye the chance of a repeat; perhaps even better. There were red flags and red flares, smoke and the sounds of Istanbul. It rendered it all the stranger that Turkey had been thrashed 6-1 by Austria in March. But, four months on, Turkey produced a stunning start, a seismic turnaround and a night to suggest Euro 2024, unlike Euro 2020, may be their tournament.