Turkey's Demiral dropped for Wales game at Euro 2020

Baku (AFP) – Turkey coach Senol Gunes dropped Juventus centre-back Merih Demiral for Wednesday’s Euro 2020 Group A match against Wales in Azerbaijan after scoring an own goal in last week’s heavy loss to Italy.

Gunes has also omitted attacker Yusuf Yazici for the game against the 2016 European Championship semi-finalists after Friday’s tournament-opening 3-0 defeat by the Azzurri.

Sassuolo defender Kaan Ayhan and Leicester City winger Cengiz Under come in.

Gunes’ side must avoid defeat to realistically keep their hopes of a last-16 place alive.

Wales coach Robert Page has kept faith with the same starting XI from Saturday’s draw with Switzerland as goal-scorer Kieffer Moore leads the attack with Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale on the left wing.

Starting line-ups:

Turkey (4-1-4-1): 

Ugurcan Cakir; Zeki Celik, Caglar Soyuncu, Kaan Ayhan, Umut Meras; Okay Yokuslu; Kenan Karaman, Ozan Tufan, Cengiz Under, Hakan Calhanoglu; Burak Yilmaz (capt)

Coach: Senol Gunes (TUR)

Wales (4-3-2-1)

Danny Ward; Connor Roberts, Joe Rodon, Chris Mepham, Ben Davies; Joe Morrell, Joe Allen, Aaron Ramsey; Dan James, Gareth Bale (capt); Kieffer Moore

Coach: Robert Page (WAL)

Referee: Artur Dias (POR)