Moldova and Turkey take on each other on Tuesday for a crucial Euro 2020 qualification game in group H. Moldova come into the game after having picked up only three points so far from the five matches. As a result, the team are sitting in the fifth place with little hope of qualification to the tournament. Turkey, meanwhile, are second in the standings after having taken the same number of points as Iceland and France – 12 points. Hence, there is a real need of three points from the visiting team, who will be hopeful of getting past the minnows in style.
The last match between the two teams happened to take place in March when Turkey were able to get a comfortable 4-0 victory. The last meeting between these two teams on Moldovan soil was back in 2007 when Turkey were held to a 1-1 draw.ViorelFronza’s early goal was cancelled out by Omit Karan in that meeting. Even though these two teams have met each other on nine occasions in the last two decades, Turkey have been able to come out on top in more than several occasions. Turkey have also been able to keep clean sheets in many of these games. The loss to Iceland is a major blow to Turkey in this early stage of the qualification campaign, but there is still a lot of time left to put things right.
Moldova have not been able to make much of an impact even after bringing in Semen Altman as the new coach. The presence of youngsters like Vitalie Damascan will help the team going forward. The narrow victory over Andorra is now the only success for Moldova in the last seven matches. A major difference is the improvement shown by Moldova against the bigger teams with the team not suffering big defeats.