Hi, everybody, from my home town of Istanbul!

First of all, I have to mention that everyone here on the Turkish national team have had a great time playing in front of our own fans, both in Ankara and now Istanbul. Maybe that goes without saying, but after winning all our games so far, it must be said loudly. Our fans have helped us to improve our game day by day. The positive energy that we get from them is one of the main reasons for our unbeaten run so far in the World Championships. They simply raise your enthusiasm level during the matches. When you hear them chanting for you, it makes you feel the honour of wearing the jersey of your country. Those are really nice things to feel. And I see myself as a very lucky guy to have the chance to breathe this kind of atmosphere.

Anyway, we still have games to win if we want to complete our mission. In the eighthfinals, the first knockout game, we had another great performance against France. We started with pressure on their guards, in order to keep them from organizing the offense. We were succesfull enough and soon broke their rhythm. They made too many turnovers because of our pressure on the ball and that allowed us to play the game in the way we wanted to play. Hedo Turkoglu and Sinan Guler were both on fire, and we also hurt France with our defense, too. We know that whenever we play defense with that kind of toughness, no one can beat us. We never had problem on defense against France, and we never fail if we play tough like that.

Now, in the quarterfinals, we are going to have probably our toughest game of the tournament so far, against Slovenia. You will remember the game that we played against... more

Hi everybody, and greetings again from the Turkish national team! We have lived through a great first round as host of the World Championships, with our fans pushing us at every step, and now are getting ready for the knock-out games. Things are even better now than before the beginning of the tournament. We had a great start to the World Championships and finished the first round undefeated in our preliminary group. We knew that we would play well, but we didn't think that we would finish the group games unbeaten.

The main reason for our extraordinary performance is the good homework of our coaching staff, including conditioning coach Ozan Sirikci, who did excellent job to prepare us for the tournament. That's how we remained fresh and resistant through five straight games. But I also have to give the praise to our fans, who deserved so much of it for they way they backed us during the first-round matches. They gave great support to us and helped us to feel comfortable on the court. The did everything they could to raise our performance.

The game against Greece was the hardest one in the group. We also prepared this game very well, not only physically but mentally, too. We had lost to them in previous tournaments like the world and European championships. We were aiming to end that streak and managed to do it - finally. It was a great challenge between our teams, but we were better on the both defense... more

Hi everybody! The 2010 World Championships arrive to my country, Turkey, this week. I can't be happier to welcome everyone who will travel here and who will watch from far away! As I write this first World Championships blog for Euroleague.net, it's early in the morning in Ankara, our capital city, and we the Turkish national team have a morning training session to get ready for our last game in the Efes Pilson World Cup 9 friendly tournament, against Argentina. It will be the toughest preparation game for us and we take it very seriously.

One thing I can say about our training so far for the World Championships: it's good to play in front of your own fans. We felt much more motivated in the first two games of Efes Pilsen World Cup 9 here, and those fans are the main reason for the improvement in our game these days.

I have to tell you a few details about our preparations for World Championships 2010. Everything started on July 10, when we went to Bormio, Italy to begin what were some great conditioning workouts. Those were really hard sessions, so hard that we felt like we would die! But we knew that suffering then would help us during the long journey to WC 2010. After that, we kept working hard in Istanbul. Our conditioning coach, Ozan Sirikci, never let up. His job was to push us as hard as he could for our own good. In that regard, I can honestly say he is the best conditioning coach that I've ever worked with in my career.

Then, we had our first tournament in Istanbul, playing against Iran, New Zealand and Serbia. We won against Iran and New Zealand by big margins, but failed against Serbia in the final. Then we lost again to Serbia in a separate game. We moved to Germany for... more