Calhanoglu: This is an important victory to avoid the risk of yellow card suspension in the play-offs

In the European World Cup qualifiers held early this morning, Türkiye defeated Bulgaria 2-0 at home. After the game, Turkish captain Calhanoglu was interviewed.

Türkiye is currently ranked second in Group E with 12 points and 4 wins and 1 loss, 3 points behind Spain, the first in the group, and 9 points ahead of Georgia, the third in the group. However, Turkey only has a goal difference of 5, while Spain's goal difference is 19. In the last round of World Cup qualifiers, Turkey will challenge Spain away from home. Turkey must beat Spain by at least 7 goals to advance directly. This is obviously unlikely, and Türkiye has basically confirmed its need to participate in the World Cup qualifying play-offs.

Calhanoglu first said: "I want to thank the Bursa home fans for their support. I talked about this with Yildiz and Demiral during the pre-match warm-up. This is really great... When the music of "Valley of the Wolf" played, it made me tremble all over. It is a beautiful picture, so spectacular."

Calhanoglu scored a penalty kick in this game. He has played 102 times for the Turkish national team and scored 22 goals. Calhanoglu said: "This is an important victory for us. Everyone expected this to be a 4-0 or 5-0 victory, but we knew it would be a difficult game."

Calhanoglu also talked about the final round of World Cup qualifiers against Spain, "There is a risk of accumulating yellow cards and suspensions in the play-offs if we receive yellow cards in the next round. We will discuss this with the coach. We want to enter the play-offs and do not want to take any risks."

Turkey Turkey lost 0-6 at home to Spain in September this year. Calhanoglu continued: "Every heavy loss makes people more ambitious, and we proved this in the game against Georgia. We knew Spain was the favorite, and maybe we were too invested in that game."

Calhanoglu finally said: "We failed to directly qualify for the World Cup and must accept this result. The important thing now is to enter the play-offs, and we did it."

source:hk 7m