It was a constant follow-up game at Porto's Dragon Stadium: exciting and grueling at the same time.
Ultimately, all the effort was not worth it for the loser, since the favorite had won in this play-off semi-final duel on the way to the last free places for the World Cup in Qatar.
Clearly – at least at first glance at the 3-1 victory of world number six Portugal over world number thirty-ninth Turkey.
And yet the loser of this knockout game was also able to take good insights with him.
After years in the hinterland of European football, the Turks and their German coach Stefan Kuntz have at least gotten on the track of the better and best national teams, even if the Saarlander, who was extremely successful with the German U21s as European champions in 2017 and 2021, suffered his first defeat on Thursday evening had to commentate in the fifth outing for the Milli Takim.
As is typical for Kuntz, he remained fundamentally positive.
"I'm proud of this team," emphasized the coach. "In Turkey, nobody needs to be ashamed of our team.
This defeat can be the beginning of a great future.”
This should begin with the preparation for the planned participation in the European Championship in 2024 in Germany.
In Porto, at least for a short time, Turkey's third start at a World Cup after appearances at the tournaments in Switzerland in 1954 and in Japan and South Korea in 2002 was within the realm of possibility.
After the favorite Portugal had dominated the game for a long time with their fast combination football and had taken the lead with goals from Otavio (15th minute) and Diogo Jota (42nd), the outsider dared more.
Lo and behold: The 36-year-old center forward and captain Burak Yilmaz was able to reduce the deficit to 1:2 in a one-two with Cengiz Ünder (65th) and make the game exciting again.
When the Berlin referee Daniel Siebert gave Turkey a penalty just before the end after Fonte's kick against Ünal's foot, everything seemed possible.
But now Yilmaz left the coolness demonstrated at 1: 2.
He thundered the ball over the crossbar that was still touched and thus squandered the great opportunity to turn things around (85').
The Portuguese, revived as a result, completed a counterattack with a lob from Matheus Nunes to score the 3-1 winner (90+4) and thus dispelled the last doubts about what was possibly the first Portuguese defeat in a competitive game against Turkey.
As a reward, coach Fernando Santos' team will meet surprise opponents North Macedonia again in Porto in the play-off final on Tuesday.
The Turks, on the other hand, who have grown together under Kuntz into a resilient but far from mature team, have to keep working on themselves in order to be able to take part in one of the big tournaments again.
"You have to be convinced of your match plan and your strength right from the start and not only after a few minutes," Kuntz admonished his players to be more self-confident in the coming tests.
The goal is to be able to keep up with top European teams in the longer term instead of only in phases like on Thursday.
The Turkish players were currently still too far away from that for the really big hit.