Newsflash: Fatih Terim Does Not Read Euro 2008 on WCB…

…otherwise the Turkey coach would have seen our player profile of Hakan Şükür and realized what a great player he had at his disposal. Instead, Terim has left Şükür out of his initial 26-man squad for Euro 2008.

Quite a shock. For the uninitiated (make that the really uninitiated) Şükür is Turkey’s all time top scorer. He’s 36 years old but still doing the business. He even played eight and scored five in Turkey’s Euro 2008 qualification campaign.

Though that goals scored stat is a little misleading (four of those goals came in the 5-0 thrashing of Moldova) the games played stat suggests Şükür was still an important part of the team. As did the captain’s armband Şükür was wearing. So it’s a gamble by Terim.

But at least the coach showed some class and delayed naming the squad until after the Turkish league finale. A finale from which Şükür’s Galatasaray emerged as champions thanks to a 2-0 win over Gençlerbirligi. And guess who got the opening goal in that game? Yep.

Here’s the 26-man squad, with three players set to be cut by May 28th latest:

Volkan Demirel (Fenerbahce), Rustu Recber (Besiktas), Tolga Zengin (Trabzonspor); Gokhan Gonul (Fenerbahce), Sabri Sarioglu (Galatasaray), Gokhan Zan (Besiktas), Ibrahim Kas (Besiktas), Emre Asik (Galatasaray), Servet Cetin (Galatasaray), Hakan Balta (Galatasaray), Ugur Boral (Fenerbahce); Mehmet Aurelio (Fenerbahce), Mehmet Topal (Galatasaray), Emre Belozoglu (Newcastle), Tumer Metin (Larissa), Yildiray Basturk (Stuttgart), Hamit Altintop (Bayern Munich), Ayhan Akman (Galatasaray), Arda Turan (Galatasaray), Tuncay Sanli (Middlesbrough), Kazim Kazim (Fenerbahce), Gokdeniz Karadeniz (Rubin Kazan); Nihat Kahveci (Villarreal), Halil Altintop (Schalke), Semih Senturk (Fenerbahce), Mevlut Erding (Sochaux).

Two interesting choices: Hamit Altintop and Colin Kazim Kazim. The former is currently injured, while the latter was known as Colin Kazim-Richards when he played for Sheffield United in the Premiership in 2006/7. Kazim was born in England, and so at least gives England fans the option of cheering for someone with ties to their country.