Vincenzo Montella praises Turkey’s heart and spirit after win over Austria

Vincenzo Montella hailed Turkey’s spirit in overcoming a highly fancied Austria side and booking a place in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals. The manager also admitted he had wiped “a horrible stain” from his career, banishing the ghosts of a 6-1 defeat against the same opponents in March.

“I’m very proud of the spirit we showed on the pitch,” Montella said. “It’s outstanding for a coach when you’re able to see that. Besides our formation, our gameplan and our tactics I saw Turkish heart today, and that’s what I love about this country.”

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Montella had played down notions of taking revenge on Austria before the match and, while he made it clear no such emotion had consumed him, admitted he was ecstatic to have salvaged professional pride. “A horrible stain on my career,” he said of that night in Vienna. “That’s what I was waiting for, to try and get this monkey off my back. We as coaches are just like footballers, we’re competitors. I had this competitive instinct because we wanted to change that result, it was a friendly but there’s no such thing as a friendly.”

The Turkey goalkeeper Mert Gunok confirmed their 2-1 victory with an extraordinary last-gasp save from Christoph Baumgartner and Montella acknowledged the moment’s importance. “I’m happy for him, happy for the team and the country, happy for the group and what we’ve created here,” he said.

“Well done to Mert, it’s his job to make saves and we’re very happy that he’d made a match-winning save in the final minute.”

Ralf Rangnick bemoaned that Austria “didn’t have the necessary luck” and said their exit was still sinking in. “I cannot imagine that we are going home today,” he said. “We thought we would continue our journey here and get ready for the next few games and the players thought the same.

“The four games we played were very entertaining, very intense, I have seen other games where it was difficult to stay awake and that was not the case with ours.”