Fatih feasts on Turkish Delight

Well this tournament continues to exceed all expectations with the second quarter final of EURO 2008 managing to surpass the first one for sheer drama, if not quality, as Croatia vs Turkey exploded into life in the final moments after a frankly fairly drab previous 120 minutes during which both teams had pretty much cancelled each other out.

With only one minute of extra-time remaining, the Turkish veteran keeper Rustu, only playing due to Volkan's moment of madness in the final group match against the Czechs when he got sent off for pushing man-mountain Jan Köller, rushed out of his goal to try to beat Luka Modric to the ball, however he was always going to be second and had to scamper back to the goal as the Croatian midfielder's cross found the unmarked Ivan Klasnic, who nodded in to send the tablecloth wearing Croat supporters into ecstasy.

Their joy though was shortlived, as with literally seconds left on the clock, a desperate longball into the Croatian penalty area ended up at the feet of Semih Senturk, who hit a hard and low shot between two defenders to leave Pletikosa an unhappy bystander as the ball hit the net to the astonishment of everyone watching.

Slaven Billic remonstrated with the fourth official as to where the two additional minutes of extra time had come from and at this point it seemed as though there would only be one winner of the penalty shootout, with the Croatians clearly psychologically broken.

And so it proved with Modric, probably Croatia's best player on the night, missing the first penalty. Turkey scored all three of their spotkicks  with Arda Turan, Semih and Hamit Altintop all calmly slotting home, with only Srna scoring for Croatia and it was all over when villain turned hero, Rustu, dived to his left to palm out Mladen Petric's effort.

Turkish delight was only matched by the visible shock and distress for the Croatian players, several of whom collapsed onto the Viennese turf in floods of tears. Rustu showed real class in shunning the celebrations to commiserate with each of the opposition players.

So once again the Turks are the 'Comeback Kings' (expect to be sick of this description by the time of their semi-final with Germany) and have defied all expectations (only Austria had longer odds to win the tournament) to reach the last four for the first time in their history.