Vincenzo Montella has been in charge of the Turkey national team for just nine months and 12 matches, but he stunned Ralf Rangnick to reach the quarter-finals of the Euro 2024 European Championship.

The 50-year-old Italian took office only on September 21, 2023, just three weeks after Luciano Spalletti was appointed coach of Italy, KosovaPress reports.

It was just his 12th game in charge of the Turkish national team, having started in a 1-0 qualifying win over Croatia in October, and there were calls for him to be sacked in March after Rangnick's 6-1 friendly loss to Austria .

However, he got sweet revenge with this 2:1 win thanks to two goals from former Juventus, Atalanta and Sassuolo defender Merih Demiral.

Montella has already overseen five wins, two draws and four defeats for Turkey, but the most important statistic is that they are in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024, where they face the Netherlands on Saturday in Munich.

The Italian coach completely caught Rangnick by surprise, forced into changes as Inter midfielder Hakan Calhanoglu and defender Samet Akaydin were suspended.

Montella ditched the 4-2-3-1 formation and switched to a 3-4-3 with Arda Guler effectively acting as a false 9 flanked by Kenan Yildiz and Alper Yilmaz.

This allowed them to defend with five and then quickly go on the counter-attack, especially since Kaan Ayhan played as a defender at Sassuolo and a midfielder here. They also alternated different ways of playing from the back to avoid Rangnick's high pressure, including some impressive long passes from the keeper.

Notably, both of Demiral's goals came from Arda Guler's corners, so Turkey may have someone ready to challenge Calhanoglu's dominance in those certain game situations.

Turkey have won three of their four matches at Euro 2024 so far, beating Georgia 3-1 and the Czech Republic 2-1, only losing 3-0 to Portugal after some truly chaotic defensive mistakes.