Turkey v Georgia Match Result
Turkey will hope to draw home comforts at the Kocaeli Stadium in İzmit when they host Georgia on 14 October. They will clash with a side who are likely to have been given the runaround a few days earlier at Elche, with the difficult task of meeting Spain likely to have seen La Roja having scored plenty of goals.
The Turks will be identifying second spot in the group and a victory here will virtually cement their place in the play-offs. The reverse fixture was played at Boris Paichadze Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi and we saw Vincenzo Montella’s side race into a 3-0 lead only for the hosts to score a couple of second-half goals.
Kerem Aktürkoğlu was at the double in that game and the Fenerbahce midfielder could hold the aces in this clash, with the World Cup betting sites anticipating that Turkey will be comfortable winners. Home advantage clearly has a bearing and we recently saw Galatasaray claim a 1-0 win over Liverpool in the Champions League.
If you think that Turkey will win and have their noses in front by the interval, you can get bigger odds about this side leading at half-time and full-time. They will want to bounce back after that humiliation at home to Spain. They fell behind early in that clash and were found wanting against a high-class operator who were merciless when it came to taking their chances.
Georgia will realistically need to win this match to stand any chance of booking that play-off berth for themselves. Having lost the reverse fixture, they’ll have to come out on the front foot in this game and they have an outside chance of being successful. However, they are outsiders for a reason and perhaps they will be heroic losers once again.
Goals Under/Over
We’re expecting the goal line to be set quite high for this clash. Turkey’s first two World Cup qualifiers featured five goals and six goals. Georgia’s first two were five and three. These teams are both attack-minded but also capable of conceding and that could lead to a high-scoring adventure.
Indeed, since drawing 0-0 with Wales in a Nations League clash, six of the past seven games involving Turkey have seen three or more goals scored. They played out some high-scoring games against Hungary in the Nations League play-offs, coming away with a 6-1 aggregate success.
Georgia have also had some high-scoring games and there was a double header against Armenia which also saw them claim a 6-1 aggregate success. The fact that the reverse game ended 3-2 in favour of Turkey means it could be worth considering Over 4.5 Goals.
BTTS
We’re fairly sold on both teams finding the net in this clash. Turkey will surely find the net as the strong home favourites and with so much firepower at their disposal. They will create plenty of chances against modest opponents and we can safely assume they will be among the goals. They did draw a blank in a recent clash against Spain but this was playing against high-calibre opposition.
The Turks also drew a blank against Mexico last summer although they have found the net three times against the United States and six times over two matches against Hungary. They also scored three goals away to Georgia, so it seems improbable that they will come up short in this encounter.
As for the visitors, they have averaged 2.5 goals in their two games so far. The game state might mean they go forward in search of goals. A defeat would render their World Cup qualification campaign effectively over after a likely defeat against Spain just a few days earlier than this fixture.
First Goalscorer
Kerem Aktürkoğlu should come into our thoughts after a brace in Tbilisi. The winger has now scored fourteen goals in his forty-six appearances in a Turkey shirt and might have plenty of joy from the wide positions here. He previously scored eleven times for Benfica before making a switch to Fenerbahce and there’s some merit in backing him to score first.
Mert Müldür was the other scorer in September although the Fenerbahce defender is only a long shot to find the net first here. Arda Guler could be the one to watch and he’s made lots of appearances for Real Madrid already this season. The twenty-three-year-old has scored twelve times in the space of forty-six games for his club side and will surely improve his strike rate on an international basis.
Hakan Çalhanoğlu has now reached 100 caps for his country and he’s been a reliable source of goals, with the Georgians looking towards Khvicha Kvaratskhelia for inspiration. The Paris Saint-Germain player is one of the best forwards in the world and will hope to make an impact against a creaking defence. Georges Mikautadze is another talent who is averaging more than a goal every two games.