Mehmet Büyükekşi's comments on the Italy match

The A National Football Team will face Italy tonight at 22:00 TSI at the Renato Dall'Ara Stadium in Bologna as part of their preparations for the 2024 European Football Championship (EURO 2024).

TFF President Mehmet Büyükekşi made statements to members of the press before the match.

“EXTREMELY IMPORTANT”

Starting his remarks by noting that an important match will be played against Italy, President Büyükekşi said, “They are the European champions of the last tournament.

That is why it is an important match. But our coach, Montella, specifically wanted to play friendly matches against strong teams. We have Poland after this; both are teams participating in the European Championship. Italy also has a unique feature; our coach is Italian.

Furthermore, the stadium in Bologna where we are playing today is the stadium where Montella first wore the national team jersey. That was a separate coincidence. June 7 is the final deadline for submitting the squad for the European Championship. Our goal is to achieve firsts. 

We will do our best to be successful and win against Italy, but our priority is to determine the squad rather than the result of the match.

Apart from this match, our coach wanted to play a match tomorrow with the players who did not play today, consisting of two 30-minute halves, and determine the squad for June 7 accordingly. Our coach will reduce the 35-man squad to 26. That is why it is extremely important,” he said.

“WE ARE BUILDING THE NATIONAL TEAM OF THE FUTURE”

Reminding that the 2032 European Championship will be co-hosted by Turkey and Italy, Mehmet Büyükekşi said, “We have earned the right to host the European Championship in Turkey together with our Italian friends. That is why being in Italy today has a special meaning. When we look at it, our football ambassador was Volkan Demirel. Volkan Demirel is also with us. 

Today, after the match, Buffon and Volkan Demirel will come together regarding the organization of the EURO 2032 championship. 2032 is very important for Turkey because we have obtained a right that we have been striving for for years and could not achieve. We are ready with our stadium and infrastructure investments. 

We are making a claim that our A National Team will be the European champion in 2032. That is why it is very important for the current young players to enter the national team.

Our stars like Arda, Semih, Can, and Kenan will be 26 years old then. We are already building the national team of the future; they will be much more experienced and world-class football stars by then. Our goal is to add even newer young players to them; we are currently the youngest national team in Europe, and we want to maintain this,” he stated.