Hakan's feeling the heat

There is no sight in football quite as forlorn as a goalscorer who cannot score. Amid the general euphoria surrounding Turkey's extraordinary achievement in reaching the last four of the World Cup in Osaka last Saturday, Hakan Sukur's sheepish look told of a man who knew he ought to be celebrating but could not quite bring himself to join the party.

Senol Gunes's team had sent a nation crazy by making history but they had battled into their semi-final against Brazil despite, rather than because of, the contributions of the captain they know simply as 'The King'.

One of Europe's most admired strikers had just undergone a nightmare in front of goal, leaving his decline to become as big a topic of debate among the media as discussion about why the rest of the team had simultaneously soared to previously undreamed of heights.

Making it even more poignant, was the fact that when he was finally put out of his misery by Gunes and brought off, it was his replacement, Ilhan Mansiz, who emerged to score the golden goal against Senegal.

So today, Gunes was left with the unenviable decision of whether to sacrifice the nation's hero. Dropping Hakan would be almost sacrilegious, such is his near-mythical status back in Istanbul. Regarded widely as their best player of all time, he has played more internationals, 78, and scored more goals, 35, than any other Turk.

Here, though, he has been so out of sorts, rivalling German Carsten Jancker for the title of the tournament's most hapless striker, that his growing band of critics within the media have souped up their howls that, at 30, he has become a liability.

It is the sort of stuff Alan Shearer used to get long before the days when bleating commentators started begging him to come out of international retirement and few are convinced that Gunes would dare sideline Hakan, not least because Turkey's tactics effectively centre on his towering presence as a target man who can hold up the ball effectively and bring their attacking midfielders into play.

Yesterday, Gunes hinted that he might play Hakan alongside Ilhan, the Besiktas striker who prefers to attack from deep, but that would require a drastic tactical reshuffle. So everyone senses no alternative; the Parma man will get one more chance to prove that setbacks and trauma can eventually never suppress his talent.