The Turkey national football team () represents Turkey in men's international football matches. The team is controlled by the Turkish Football Federation (), the governing body for football in Turkey, which was founded in 1923 and has been a member of FIFA since 1923 and UEFA since 1962. It has been recognized as Türkiye by the FIFA and UEFA since 2022. The team played their first official international game in 1923 and has represented the nation in major competitions since their debut appearance at the 1924 Summer Olympics. They have participated in Summer Olympics a total of six times (1924, 1928, 1936, 1948, 1952 and 1960), and reached the quarter-finals twice, in 1948 and 1952. The team enjoyed their highest achievements in the 2000s, most notably finishing in third place at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup, and reaching the semi-finals at UEFA Euro 2008. They qualified for FIFA World Cup three times (1950, 1954 and 2002) and reached the semi-finals in 2002, winning bronze medals. The team qualified for UEFA European Championships five times. Making their debut at Euro 96, they reached the quarter-finals in Euro 2000 and semi-finals in Euro 2008. In recent years, Turkey qualified to the Euro 2016 and Euro 2020 championships. Since its introduction in 1992, the FIFA World Rankings have ranked Turkey between 5th and 57th place. Following their success at the 2002 World Cup, Turkey managed to stay in the top 10 in rankings between 2002 and 2004, ranking at 5th in June 2004. The team climbed once again up to 10th place in December 2008, following their success at Euro 2008. Turkey achieved their highest victory margin with 7–0 wins over Syria in 1949, South Korea in 1954 and San Marino in 1996, while their biggest losses were 8–0 defeats to Poland in 1968 and England in 1984 and 1987. , the most capped player to play on the national team is Rüştü Reçber with 120 senior international caps between 1994 and 2012, and the most scoring player is Hakan Şükür with 51 goals scored between 1992 and 2007. The longest-serving captain is Turgay Şeren with captaincy of 35 international encounters from 1950 to 1966. History Early years The Turkish National Team's first game was against Romania, played on 26 October 1923 at Taksim Stadium in Istanbul, a 2-2 draw "A National Team History", Turkish Football Federation.