It was a step too far for Kosovo, but only just. They could hardly have given more in running Turkey to the wire but it is Vincenzo Montella’s team, relieved and jubilant at the end, that will play at the World Cup in a little over two months’ time. Turkey make their return after 24 years away; Kosovo had been seeking the most unlikely of debuts and could have made that prospect real if Fisnik Asllani’s first-half effort had not come back off the bar.
In the end, though, a scruffy and hotly contested finish by Kerem Akturkoglu settled things early in the second half and, via some minor scares, Turkey could scrape home from there. Kosovo will surely be back, a technically exceptional side richer for this heady experience.
Pristina had fizzed with electricity all day. It felt as if Kosovo’s entire 1.6m population, along with a sizable proportion of neighbouring Albania, had crammed along Mother Teresa Boulevard and its side streets for an occasion without parallel since the country declared independence in 2008. Kosovo were not allowed to play official matches until 2014, waiting a further two years for admission to Uefa and Fifa; standing on the threshold of the world’s elite so soon was cause for celebration in itself but Franco Foda’s much improved side could legitimately fancy its chances.
