Although the Turkey traveled with “dreams and aspirations” to the US courts for the World Cupsuffered two defeats in as many group matches (to Australia and Paraguay by 2-0 and 1-0 respectively) resulting in a painful and early elimination.
As analysts point out, the paradox is that both defeats occurred while the team from the neighboring country had an overwhelming offensive superiority, both against the “Kangaroos” and the Latin American team.
The Turkish National Team’s run to the 2026 World Cup – and with one match remaining against the USA – can be described as a real “anthem to waste”: in the two matches played by Vincenzo Modela’s team, they scored an impressive total of 62 shots, without managing to score a single shot.
This is an absolutely overwhelming negative for the Turks, who created chances like never before, both against Australia (30 shots) and against Paraguay (32), but failed to do the most important thing: turn their superiority into goals.
According to the data presented by the expert statistician “MisterChip”, no team in the World Cup had ever “managed” to lose a match having made 30 or more shots and while having more than 70% possession of the ball. But Turkey did it in the current World Cup, not once, but twice.
The previous negative record for two consecutive World Cup goalless games was held by Italy back in 1966, with 49 shots without finding the net (19 against the then united Soviet Union and 30 against North Korea).
