Quarter-Final 2 Croatia v Turkey / Dan Fitch / 19 June 2008 / Leave a comment

As a kid I used to leave everything until the last minute. Whilst my mates would be chatting away on the bus to school, I'd be trying in vain to hold my exercise book still, as I completed the homework that needed to be handed in that morning.

This method served me well enough, until the day came when I tried to repeat the same trick for my GCSE coursework. It was all very well copying twenty odd mathematical equations in my form room, but a different matter when I tried to finish my GCSE geography project (which I should have been working on over a course of months and should have run to about eighty pages) within a couple of days.

I fear that Turkey are to be taught the same, harsh life lesson. They left it until the very last minute to complete their essays upon how to beat Switzerland and the Czech Republic, but now they've reached the stage where frantic scribbling will not suffice.

Slaven Bilic has the look of a sadistic PE teacher who might also dabble in the humanities subject. You can tell that he wouldn't be the sort to tolerate any nonsense and if pushed, would have you doing laps of the football pitch in your pants, whilst he stood around wearing a big coat and drinking coffee. Unlike kindly old Mr Bruckner and daffy old Mr Kuhn, you don't try and pull the wool over the eyes of the fearsome Mr Bilic.

Turkey's last minute comebacks have provided us with some of the most entertaining moments in Euro 2008, but they can't expect Croatia to make the same sort of basic errors that allowed Switzerland and the Czechs to let them off the hook.

The Turks were going out until they took advantage of the magical skullcap that Petr Cech now wears, which has stripped him of his goalkeeping powers. They then cruelly robbed us of the penalty shoot out that we wanted to see, but if they want to beat Croatia, playing for spot kicks may be the only way to go.

Croatia rested several players against Poland, but still kept up their momentum with a 1-0 win. It looks like there might be some strength in depth in this squad and soon they might shake off their 'if they had Eduardo fit they'd be genuine contenders' tag.

Turkey have never beaten Croatia in the three matches in which they have clashed, but more importantly for us, only one of these games has broken the 2.5 goal mark. On average, games between Croatia and Turkey average 2.33 goals per game.

Croatia have made the quarters of the European Championships only once, in 1996, when they lost to Germany in a game that broke 2.5 goals. Turkey's only appearance in a quarter final came in 2000, but they missed out on overs, as they lost 2-0 to Portugal.

Overall, the quarter finals of European Championships are not happy hunting grounds for overs backers. From the twelve quarter finals that have been played since 1996, only four have broken 2.5 goals.

Over the last three World Cups, there have been only five instances of overs, from the twelve quarter finals played. In the last eight of a major competition, it is rare that the difference between two sides is so great that the goals fly in.

But Turkey may be such a team. They conceded five goals in their three games in Group A, which apart from Portugal didn't include great quality. On average their matches produced an overs busting 3.33 goals per game.

Under 2.5 goals is the favourite here at [1.72], with overs at [2.36]. Whilst the overs might not be broken, it should not be discounted for a trading position. Croatia scored after just four minutes against Austria and 24 minutes against Germany. Turkey conceded first half goals against both Switzerland and the Czechs, which all points to the chance of an early goal in this quarter final.

Tags: Croatia, Euro 2008 Betting, Fatih Terim, Slaven Bilic, Turkey