Two times in the past week the Joeys (Australian men's under 17 team) have played matches against their Turkish equivalents at the Canakkale stadium which is located near Gallipoli in Turkey. The first match was played on the 24th of April and the second on the 26th of April. These dates were chosen to coincide with Anzac Day (April 25th) in Australia and National Sovereignty and Children's Day (April 23) in Turkey. This is going to become an annual football event which will alternate between Turkey and Australia and will be played between the various men's and women's national teams.
With these matches being the first played in what is going to become an continuing tradition. Also being an Anzac day sporting event that actually included sporting teams from more then one country. Plus the fact the matches were actually played in the country, Turkey where the Anzac spirit was born and that it was important enough for Turkish and Australian officials including Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith and NSW Premier Nathan Rees to attend the first match you would hope the matches would of been covered by the Australian sports media.
Unfortunately this was not the case apart from the SBS news none of the free to air stations had any mention of the matches on their respective news broadcasts. The two games were also ignored by the newspapers except for the Sunday Age which managed to find room to have a 71 word report about the first match.
For the two matches, in the first match Turkey won by a goal to nil with Ilker Sayan scoring in the 64th minute. If you want to read a match report about the match here's the link.
In the second match Australia managed to go ahead after Kerem Bulut scored in the 48th minute however Turkey ended up wining the match after Artun Akcakin scored twice in the 63rd and 81st minutes and here's a link to a match report for the second game.
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