COLOGNE, Germany — There is only one host nation at Euro 2024, but two nations can say they have home advantage. Just as Germany can count on the backing of thousands of passionate, expectant supporters, so can Turkey. The success of Vincenzo Montella’s team is creating as much noise in Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich as anything Julian Nagelsmann’s side has achieved.
Turkey are the unofficial second home nation of this tournament thanks to the huge Turkish diaspora in Germany — 2.9 million claim to have Turkish heritage — mirroring Mexico‘s status in this summer’s Copa América in the United States prior to their group-stage elimination. But while Mexico flopped in the Copa despite their incredible support, Turkey are now preparing for a Euro 2024 quarterfinal against Netherlands in Berlin on Saturday. Win that and Bizim Cocuklar (Our Kids) would potentially be one game away from the final, possibly even facing Germany should both sides continue to advance.
Turkey’s relationship with Germany is a complex one. Five of Montella’s team — Cenk Tosun, Salih Özcan, Kenan Yildiz, Kaan Ayhan and captain Hakan Çalhanoglu — were born in Germany, but chose to play for the country of their ancestors, while Germany’s captain, Ilkay Gündogan, and midfielder Emre Can opted to play for Die Mannschaft having been born in Gelsenkirchen and Frankfurt, respectively.
“I was born and raised in Germany but I feel Turkish, it’s a matter of identity,” Özcan, the Cologne-born Borussia Dortmund midfielder, said ahead of Turkey’s opening Euro 2024 game against Georgia. “It’s really a big advantage for us to play here in Germany, so I urge all the Turkish fans to come and bring on the noise. I promise we will honour the flag until the end.”
Turkey’s fans have certainly brought the noise. Their games have been played in stadiums that have been a sea of red, and in Dortmund local police issued several messages in Turkish on social media urging celebrating supporters to stop “burning pyrotechnics” and “leaning out of vehicles while driving.” According to a police statement, order was finally restored at 1.40 a.m. the next morning.
Another huge Turkish contingent is expected in and around the Olympiastadion for Saturday’s game against the Dutch — over 200,000 Turks live in Berlin, making it the largest Turkish community anywhere in the world outside of Turkey — and a UEFA source has told ESPN that Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also expected to attend the tie.
While eight of the 24 nations on show at Euro 2024 share borders with Germany, none has been represented in anywhere close to the numbers that have followed Turkey.
“We really feel at home when we’re in Germany,” said midfielder Yusuf Yazici. “It’s like having your nation accompany you.”
There is no escaping the Turkish identity of Keupstrasse, a 15-minute tram ride from the centre of Cologne, Germany’s fourth-largest city. A national flag of Turkey is draped from one side of the street to the other, cafes sell baklava and the Music Gala shop is playing songs from Ferdi Ozbegen as kebab shop chefs carve doners (meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie) for locals at lunchtime.
Cologne is second only to Berlin in terms of its Turkish population, with over 60,000 having made their home in the city. When Germany sought overseas workers to solve a labour shortage in the 1960s, Turkish gastarbeiter (“guest workers”) first arrived in Cologne and the surrounding towns and Keupstrasse, the heart of community, has become known as “Little Istanbul.”
But while it feels like a small corner of Turkey, there is also a sense of divided loyalties being triggered by Turkish success at Euro 2024.
“Of course we want Turkey to win,” Nevzat, a shopkeeper on Keupstrasse told ESPN. “But even if they can’t, we all live in Germany, so we want Germany to be successful too. And if Turkey plays Germany, we would love that very much because it would be a match of friendship. Let the best team win.”
Muhammet, a jeweller on Keupstrasse, was born in Cologne and is a third-generation German Turk. While he is supporting Turkey at Euro 2024, he admits that there is a determination to be respectful to the country that his family has made its home.
“You never forgot the roots,” he said. “The Turkish people they are bound to, how you say it? Look to their origin, their heritage, yeah. That’s why we are so proud and even if it is a little step or a little victory for us, we are celebrating like we won the whole thing. But we are also German. My mother put the Turkish flag on the house when the football started, but my father said ‘okay, we must be respectful because we are in the German community.’ So he took the German flag out and put it beside the Turkish flag.”
There is no doubt that football has been a lightning rod for tension between the German and Turkish communities in the past, however. Even this week, the decision to broadcast the round-of-16 match against Austria on a pay-per-view channel rather than show the game on free-to-air state channels ZDF and ARD as usual prompted anger within the Turkish community.
Former Arsenal and Real Madrid forward Mesut Özil, a son of Turkish immigrants, cited “racism” as a reason for his decision to retire from international football in 2018 having previously won 92 caps and the 2014 World Cup with Germany. Özil had been criticised by Germany FA president Reinhard Grindel for being photographed alongside president Erdogan.
“It is with a heavy heart and after much consideration that because of recent events I will no longer be playing for Germany at international level while I have this feeling of racism and disrespect,” Özil said in 2018. “I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose.”
Gündogan was also pictured with Erdogan at the same time, but he chose to continue to play for Germany, despite initially being booed and whistled by supporters due to a perception of not being fully committed to his birth nation. “To be portrayed as if we were not integrated or did not live according to German values was a deep blow for me,” Gündogan said in 2023.
The treatment of Özil and Gündogan, as well as the subsequent choices made by the two players, remains an issue to some within the Turkish community.
“I’ve been living in Germany for 40 years, but I will go back to Turkey when I no longer work,” Rukige, who works in the Turkish Airlines office on Keupstrasse, told ESPN. “I want Germany to win, I want Turkey to win. I want us both to be happy. But I also work in a restaurant in the city centre and I know that speaking to the local people, they don’t want Turkey to win. They want everybody to win against Turkey.
“I don’t understand why. I don’t know why that is. Why do the people not like people from Turkey? We are peaceful, happy people.
“I don’t like Ilkay Gündogan. He doesn’t speak up for the Turkish people, not like Mesut Özil. He has a voice. We don’t have a voice here, but he is a person that says it, says give us some democracy. I don’t understand why the German people don’t want us to be successful.”
It is a similar sentiment in the Damla café down the street, where Seval talks of her pride that Cologne-born Ozcan plays for Turkey, though she chooses not to discuss Özil and Gündogan. “I don’t talk football too much,” she said. “But we feel honoured when Turkey wins and, if they play against Germany, of course we are on Turkey’s side.”
Bilal and Hakan serve kebabs in the Cigkoftem café and talk of a joint community, discussing their loyalty to both sides.
“Our people are Turkish people, but we are also German,’ Hakan said. “And why shouldn’t we be both? We serve everybody in this café, Turkish, German, anybody. Why do many Germans now like kebabs? It is because they have also embraced the Turkish community.”
Turkey have only progressed beyond the quarterfinal stage of the European Championships on one previous occasion, when they reached the semifinals of Euro 2008 before losing to yes — you guessed it — Germany, in a 3-2 defeat in Basel, Switzerland. Having landed in the opposite half of the knockout bracket to Germany, the only prospect of the two teams meeting at Euro 2024 would be in the final in Berlin on July 14.
With German media reporting that more Turkey fans (130,000) attended group-stage games than Germany supporters (125,000), it is difficult to predict with any certainty that the host nation would have most support in the stadium. For now, however, the focus is on the next game and overcoming the Dutch to secure a semifinal against either England or Switzerland in Dortmund — though they will have to do it without defender Merih Demiral, who was handed a two-game suspension by UEFA after he celebrated a goal by displaying a hand sign associated with an ultranationalist group.
“We are thrilled to play and give it our all in front of our fans in Berlin,” Turkey’s Real Madrid midfielder Arda Güler said. “They create an amazing atmosphere. Netherlands of course are a very strong opponent, but we are also confident when we all come together. We hope to reach the semifinals.”
On Thursday, midfielder Okay Yokuslu spoke about the “emotional intensity” of playing for Turkey and being backed by so many supporters, saying: “Making our nation happy is something that makes us very proud.”
Being in Germany, driven on by so many expats and fans with Turkish heritage, is creating a unique experience — one that would not even be matched if Euro 2024 was being staged in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
“I think the Turks here in Germany are much more bonded to the heritage than the Turks in Turkey,” said Muhammet from Keupstrasse. “That is also said by some Turkish football commentators: they say that the Turks in Germany are much prouder, much more passionate than the people in Turkey. It’s hard to explain, but our people in Germany, we make everything in the extreme way. Extremely good or extremely bad, but always passionate and noisy.”
If Turkey continue their incredible run and make it to the final of Euro 2024, there will be thousands of streets like Keupstrasse throughout Germany, bringing more noise and colour than you can imagine.
