OneFootball
Peter Fitzpatrick·2 July 2024
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Peter Fitzpatrick·2 July 2024
Barring maybe the man himself and his mother, no one would have pegged Merih Demiral to be Türkiye’s goalscoring hero against Austria tonight, but that is the case so far.
The 26-year-old defender’s second goal of the night put his side 2-0 up briefly, and saw him brilliantly both double his international goal tally and equal his season-high at club level.
After scoring inside a minute at the start of the game, he got his second just before the hour mark with a dominant header from yet another brilliant Arda Güler corner.
In his previous 247 senior appearances for club and country, the Al-Ahli man had scored 10 times. Breaking that down further, two came in 47 for his country while eight had come in 200 games for a series of clubs, including Juventus, Atalanta and Sassuolo.
With the latter two sides, he struck twice in a season, but it took him less than 60 minutes to do it tonight.
The EUROs has found another much-loved “tournament player” and someone who the streets will never forget.
Expect to see the defender be a feature of multiple pub quizzes over the coming decades.