Twenty-four years is a long time to wait. Since Senol Gunes' magnificent side stunned the world at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, finishing third in what remains the zenith of Turkish football history, the national team has endured a dispiriting carousel of qualifying near-misses and broken promises.
Fine margins and cruel play-off defeats have snatched away tournament appearances, the World Cup stage drifting ever further out of reach. Now, armed with a generation of Turks they quietly believe surpasses even those storied predecessors, the wait may finally be over.
On Thursday night at Istanbul's Tupras Stadium, Vincenzo Montella's Turkey dispatched Romania 1-0 in their World Cup qualifying play-off semi-final, booking their place in a decisive final against Kosovo on Tuesday, in Pristina. One victory away from North America. One match from ending two and a half decades of exile from the sport's greatest stage.
The evening belonged, as so many do these days, to two men who have made enchantment their shared currency. It was Arda Guler, the Real Madrid player whose football seems drawn from a different and more romantic era, who split Romania's massed rearguard with a pass of surgical precision.
Ferdi Kadıoglu, hurtling onto it at the near post, converted with a composure quite at odds with the magnitude of the moment. The move, the pair revealed afterwards, had been rehearsed at half-time.
The match was tighter than its solitary goal suggests. Romania were managed by the 80-year-old Mircea Lucescu, a man with deep and abiding ties to Turkish football, and his familiarity with the opposition was evident as his side sat in disciplined banks throughout the first half and kept the contest goalless with studied efficiency.
During his celebrated spells at Galatasaray and Besiktas, he not only delivered trophies but seeded a footballing culture that Turkish players absorbed and made their own.
"Turkey has a very good generation," he said in measured defeat. "They are now reaping the rewards." It was the benediction of a man who helped plant a garden, only to be defeated by the flowers he grew.
Now, however, comes the harder task. Kosovo are not a side to be underestimated. Franco Foda's team play with a vertiginous attacking freedom, pressing high, transitioning at pace and defending with an intensity that belies their modest international experience.
In their semi-final against Slovakia, they were twice pegged back, yet overturned the deficit on each occasion, prevailing 4-3 in a breathless contest. Vedat Muriqi, the towering Mallorca striker, leads a front line of genuine menace alongside Fisnik Asllani, the 23-year-old Hoffenheim forward who has been one of the more compelling young strikers in the Bundesliga this season and whose equaliser against Slovakia swung the semi-final decisively in Kosovo's favour.
The atmosphere at the 14,000-capacity Fadil Vokrri Stadium in Pristina will be intimate yet hostile. Kosovo have never qualified for a World Cup or a European Championship, and for a young nation still asserting itself on the world stage, Tuesday means more than football. Turkey will need to bring something more than competence to contain that fervour.
The encouraging news is that they are equipped to do so. Montella's side possesses individual quality at almost every position and, crucially, the tactical discipline and collective maturity. Turkey should be considered slight favourites, their squad depth, their experience of high-pressure occasions and their overall calibre giving them a meaningful advantage, particularly if they can manage Kosovo's transitions and deny Muriqi the isolated aerial duels in which he thrives.
That assessment comes with caveats, the most significant of which wears the number 28 shirt for Al Ahli in Jeddah. Merih Demiral, the fulcrum of Turkey's defensive architecture and captain in the absence of others, is unavailable having arrived at camp still managing a quadriceps tendon complaint. Samet Akaydın stepped in as his replacement and acquitted himself with composure on the night, but Demiral's absence at the heart of things is a real loss.
Alongside Brazilian partner Roger Ibanez he has formed one of the Saudi Pro League's most formidable defensive partnerships, Al Ahli conceding only 19 goals in a genuine title challenge. When he extended his contract in December, he did so with characteristic directness, declaring on social media: “I’m not just staying, I belong.”
Whether he can recover in time for Pristina on Tuesday is one of the more pressing questions facing Montella. He is not the only defender plying his trade in Saudi Arabia to have been lost to this campaign. Yusuf Akcicek, the 20-year-old Al Hilal centre-back who made his senior debut under Montella last March, is also absent following a hernia operation.
In 2002, a Turkish generation reached the summit of the sport and then waited, for 24 years, for another capable of following them. Tuesday in Pristina is the moment we find out whether this one finally can.
