Turkey Had For Lunch

Group CBrazil 2 Turkey 1Group G Croatia 0 Mexico 1Italy 2 Ecuador 0YOKOHAMA - Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari criticised his team’s “fancy” finishing after the four times champions needed a dubious late penalty to beat outsiders Turkey in the World Cup on Monday.Two red cards, the first of the World Cup, decided two of the three group matches as Brazil set the tournament alight in a vibrant, if flawed, 2-1 win over Turkey.With the sides locked at 1-1 in the 86th minute of the group C match in Ulsan, South Korea, Turkey defender Alpay Ozalan tugged openly at the shirt of substitute Luizao as he sped towards the goal.The Turkey players protested furiously as South Korean referee Kim Young-joo pulled out the red card and Rivaldo lashed the resulting penalty past Turkey goalkeeper Rustu Recber.The so-called “Three R” attack — Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo — all appeared to be at the end of Big Phil’s tongue-lashing after missing gilt-edged chances.“We were too fancy, we tried to sidefoot the ball in, it looked like we wanted to score a goal in a fancy way,” Brazilian coach Scolari said.The coach was still extremely unhappy that so many opportunities were frittered away and that it needed Rivaldo’s late penalty and Ronaldo’s equaliser after 49 minutes to wipe out Hasan Sas’s goal just before the interval.Ronaldo, plagued by knee injuries since the 1998 World Cup where he suffered a seizure before the final against France, proved a constant danger. A second Turkey player was sent off in the dying moments when Hakan Unsal received a second yellow card for kicking the ball at Rivaldo as he prepared to take a corner. Although the ball appeared to hit the Brazilian on the legs he fell theatrically to the ground holding his head in apparent agony.The first match of the day also hinged on a red card.Croatia defender Boris Zivkovic felled Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Chinese referee Jun Lu had no hesitation in banishing him from the field.Blanco converted the 60th minute penalty to give Mexico victory.ReuterEnds