VIENNA has unofficially gone Turkey.

I was there with those crazy and passionate Turks this morning at the Ernst-Happel Stadium in Vienna, in Austria, and it was one long game filled with tension.

I ran into three Singaporeans, who recognised me from The New Paper's analysis, and we're looking forward to free kebabs all round when we visit the many Turkish restaurants here in Vienna.

But I was seated in Row Nine behind the team benches of Turkey's Fatih Terim and Croatia's Slaven Bilic, so I got a good close-up view of the action on the pitch and their reactions from the sidelines.

In the stadium, you can observe more of the body language and behaviour of the action that you can't catch all the time on television.

So here's the interesting dynamic of the Turkish team.

Fatih is like the bad cop, while his captain Nihat (Kahveci) is like the good cop.

Fatih is very lively on the touchline, as interesting to watch as Portugal's Luiz Felipe Scolari and Holland's Guus Hiddink.

But he's very vocal and he was always scolding two players - attacking midfielder Arda Turan and defensive midfielder Mehmet Topal - the most.

Every time he did that, to remind them to squeeze the creative Croatian midfield of Luka Modric and Niko Kranjcar, it was Nihat who would go up to them and keep encouraging them, keeping up their spirits. You know, the goop cop-bad cop routine.

Fatih also pushed Hamit Altintop into midfield to control and keep possession when they broke Croatia's attacks.

Hamit was superb. He was like Modric and Kranjcar rolled into one - my Turkish Man-of-the-Match.

This midfield plan was the story of how Fatih beat Bilic tactically this morning.

Mehmet was always following Modric and Kranjcar around and denying them freedom. That isolated Croatia's striker Ivica Olic too much, and there was no one to capitalise on the second loose ball in the box, from crosses or passes.

TEAM SPIRIT

The other quality I noticed from start to finish, was the team spirit of Turkey.

They looked together all the time, never dropped their heads even when Ivan Klasnic scored the first goal, and that's how they equalised straight after and won eventually.

Veteran reserve Rustu (Recber) played a major role to stabilise and protect them at the back for most of the game, and perhaps, it was a blessing in disguise that Volkan Demirel had to miss this game.