Football: Turkey to face Finland in World Cup Quals

Turkey looks to start winning streak, now sitting in 4th spot with 5 points

ANTALYA, Turkey (AA) - Turkey's national football team will take on Finland Friday night in the 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualification group stage match in Antalya.

The match will be played in New Antalya Stadium at 8 p.m. local time (1700GMT).

Turkey only managed to earn 5 points in the previous four matches and is sitting in the fourth spot in Group I.

Finland, on the other hand, is in fifth place with only 1 point in four matches.

Tickets for the match in the 33,000-seat stadium sold out a week ago.

The group stage matches started poorly for Turkey, which managed to get one point from Croatia in Zagreb with a 1-1 draw, then another draw followed by a 2-2 score against Ukraine at home.

The first loss came from Iceland in October, when Turkey fell 2-0. In November, Turkey scored their first win against Kosovo, 2-0.

Taking reporters’ questions at a press conference late Thursday, national team Manager Fatih Terim praised Finland’s defense, saying the Turkish team "needs to be careful."

"We aim to get two wins against Finland and Kosovo. The next four matches will decide our fate in the group," he said.

Also speaking at the press conference, Finland's Manager Markku Kanerva said Friday's clash will be a "tough match-up for both teams."

"We aim to play good defense and be able to attack starting from defending," said Kunerva.

Below is Turkey's squad against Finland:

Volkan Babacan, Cengiz Under (Medipol Basaksehir), Onur Recep Kivrak, Okay Yokuslu, Olcay Sahan (Trabzonspor), Harun Tekin (Bursaspor), Ahmet Yilmaz Calik, Selcuk Inan (Galatasaray), Sener Ozbayrakli, Mehmet Topal, Ismail Koybasi, Volkan Sen (Fenerbahce), Gokhan Gonul, Oguzhan Ozyakup, Cenk Tosun (Besiktas), Kaan Ayhan (Fortuna Dusseldorf), Caglar Soyuncu (Freiburg), Omer Toprak (Bayer Leverkusen), Arda Turan (Barcelona), Guray Vural, Deniz Turuc (Kayserispor), Emre Colak (Deportivo La Coruna), Serdar Gurler (Genclerbirligi), Emre Mor (Borussia Dortmund), Yunus Malli (Wolfsburg), and Enes Unal (Twente).

The standings in Group I are listed below: