Arda Turan Shines For Turkey; Rakitic’s Croatia Lose

The new Barça signing capped off a goal and an assist as his side beat the Netherlands 3-0 with Thomas Vermaelen’s Belgium also winning and Rakitic’s Croatia going down

Image Credit: Bleed Barça – Twitter

Barcelona stars continues to represent their various teams on the international stage as Club football for the Catalans is currently on a break. New signing Arda Turan, alongside defender Thomas Vermaelen and midfielder Ivan Rakitic were all in action for Turkey, Belgium and Croatia respectively.

Arda Turan was the star of the game as he scored a goal and created another to help Turkey cap off an invaluable 3-0 win over 2010 World Cup finalists Netherlands topple their opponent and become third in Group A’s log.

Turkey didn’t take long in the game to fire the first blow and Arda Turan was the architect in the process. The Barcelona new man exchanged series of passes with Oguzhan Ogyuakup who in the end fired a dinking shot past the advancing Netherlands goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen to give the Turks the lead as early as the eighth minute.

Turan was then at it again 20 minutes later and this time, he got the goal himself. A beautiful piece of individual play by the player from the left wing saw him shove off all of his markers with a powerful run and fired a low shot towards the bottom left corner that Cillessen failed to keep off as the ball bounced into the back of the net.

Turan was then substituted off just before the hour mark but the damage wasn’t over yet for the Netherlands as striker Burak Yilmaz added more salt to the Dutch’s injuries as he scored the third goal for Turkey with just 5 minutes left on the clock.

Arda joined Barcelona from Atletico Madrid during the summer transfer window and may not be able to feature for the Catalan giants until January 2016 due to the FIFA-imposed transfer ban, but the player showed pure quality in Turkey’s win as he help boost their chances of securing at least a playoff spot for the 2016 Euro Championship leaving the Netherlands on a knife edge. It’s been long since the midfielder featured in an official game for either his club or his national team but his performance on the night was impressive and he showed a glimpse of what he has to offer Luis Enrique’s Blaugranes when he returns to action next year.

Elsewhere, rejuvenated defender Thomas Vermaelen played the full game in defence for Belgium as they pulled off a scrappy 1-0 win in their Euro Qualifier against Cyprus. An 86th minute strike from Chelsea talisman Eden Hazard ensured Wilmot’s men get a valuable win that draws them closer to qualifying for the 2016 Euro Championship. Vermaelen and Co just need to beat Andorra in their next qualifying fixture in October to get their qualification into the tournament staged next year.

It was another disappointing outing for Ivan Rakitic and Croatia as they went their second consecutive game without getting a win after losing 2-0 to Norway on Sunday night. The Croats played a frustrating 0-0 draw against Azerbaijan in their previous game and with the loss against Norway, they’ve lost top stop in Group H to the Nordic team but still have a chance to qualify.