There were still three and a half hours to go before kick-off, but the noise ricocheted off the genteel peach-and-cream facades of Leipzig’s townhouses.
It drew people out of the squares. Locals twitched at their curtains and looked outside. Down the Martin Luther ring road, around Leipzig’s cubic, porphyry-bricked church, Turks draped in flags processed towards the RB Arena. Not even the thudding whir of rotor blades from a helicopter overhead quietened them. The sirens from police vans were a distant backing track as well.
Turks were out in force. And in their thousands. They followed an open-top bus, rented for the occasion. It was painted in the red and white — Turkey’s colours. Megaphone-wielding fans stalked the top deck. Flares fired and hissed, the red plumes of smoke causing some to pull their flags over their mouths while they sang: “Na-na na-na-na-na-naaaaaah… Ooooooooh Tur-ki-ye. Na-na na-na-na-na-naaaaah.”
Leipzig isn’t home to as many Turkish-Germans as Dortmund (23,000) and Hamburg (58,000), where the national team played their first three games at Euro 2024. But Tuesday’s round-of-16 tie against Austria, the first knockout game for which Turkey had qualified in 16 years, still felt like a home fixture. There were crescent-and-star flags upon which the names of other German cities had been printed. Members of the Turkish communities in Frankfurt and Wilhemsdorf were represented.
GO DEEPER
For the 2.8million Turks in Germany, football is coming home
When the strings of Tarkan’s Bir Oluruz Yolunda sounded over the public address system, the crowd went wild.
Then, as the tie kicked off, six drummers in the front row behind the goal tried to set the tempo of the game, their snares resting on a banner showing Ataturk, the founding father of the Turkish republic, and a quote, from history, about going forward. Fifty-seven seconds later, Turkey scored the fastest goal in a European Championship knockout-stage match right in front of them and, as in 1529 and 1683, it felt like the Turks were, once again, at the gates of Vienna.
Merih Demiral’s opener detonated an explosion of euphoria.
Demiral and his team-mates celebrate their early opener (Tullio Puglia – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
Coach Vincenzo Montella said afterwards his team were not out for revenge after a 6-1 defeat to Austria in a friendly just over three months ago. But he wanted to set things right.
The Italian called that defeat “a horrible stain on my career”. Montella had faced calls to resign and has spent the past two weeks in Germany defending his otherwise record-breaking record in charge. “When I took over, there was fear we would not qualify for the Euros,” he reminded his critics. “Not only did we qualify with a game to spare, we qualified top of our group.”
That Austria defeat seemed to cancel out everything. “We won in Germany, after 72 years. We’d never won away in Croatia. It’s been a year of firsts,” he protested.
In the heat of the moment, it all went out the window. Emotions got the better of the media and the fans. “Passion.” That was what winger Kerem Akturkoglu described as the key before Turkey’s second group game against Portugal. Not tactics. But it’s double-edged “passion”. A red wave that lifts the team up. A red wave that brings it crashing down. The spray has left Montella looking exhilarated and drained.
Managing expectations has arguably been harder than any opponents his team have faced. When Turkey lost 3-0 to Portugal on June 22, he was criticised for not playing a striker. It was considered negative. He was criticised for not starting golden boy Arda Guler and Kenan Yildiz. He was criticised for playing Altay Bayindir, the goalkeeper who started in that famous win over Germany last winter.
Montella has been left looking both exhilarated and drained (Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
During the group finale against the Czech Republic, the dirtiest game in Euros history, the mood swings in the stands oscillated in the shape of the country’s crescent.
When the Czechs were reduced to 10 men early on, the Turks in Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion were elated. They were ecstatic, too, when Hakan Calhanoglu gave them the lead. But when the Czechs equalised, the supporters grew exasperated, sneakily sucking on their vapes as they slumped over the railings.
They cursed their team until Montella brought on Cenk Tosun, the striker he was accused of ignoring, only to go delirious when the substitute scored his 94th-minute winner. “When I say we need to manage our emotions, our emotions got the better of us,” Montella observed. “We wanted it too much. Then we were a little afraid to win.”
He came to his next press conference armed with a ream of statistics to show Turkey were as attacking as the fans willed them to be.
Montella cited chances created (150), dribbles attempted (53), shots per game (17). “We’ve scored five goals with five different players, without corners, without penalties, without free kicks, without own goals.” On Tuesday, they were without Calhanoglu, their skipper and one of the best dead-ball specialists in world football. Even more than usual, it looked as though they would be without control and without a set-piece threat.
But up stepped upstart Guler.
Arda Guler whips up the Turkey fans (Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
He already pulled rank on Calhanoglu over Turkey’s corners in Hamburg. It seemed precocious of the 19-year-old, but Guler draws lines like the finest Ottoman architects.
He has an edge to him, too. Timid off the pitch, he’s daring on it. Last night, he tried to score from the halfway line. He repeatedly told his team-mates where to be. He challenged them and complained when something wasn’t to his liking.
After curling in another corner for Demiral’s, and Turkey’s, second goal of the game, he turned to the Austria fans who had just been hurling their beer cups at him and cupped his ear, inviting a torrent of abuse and more plastic rain. It was an iconic moment and caused the Turkey supporters at the other end of the pitch to go wild.
As much as his class, it is his character that stands out. “Arda put in a superb performance tonight,” Montella said. “He even had to do something different. He ran more than I’ve ever seen him run in his career. We know he still needs to beef up a bit, but I’d like to congratulate him on the performance.”
Guler turns to the Austria fans in the aftermath of his side’s second goal (Alex Pantling – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
At 2-0 up with half an hour to go, a quarter-final against the Netherlands in Berlin on Saturday looked like plain sailing. But the currents of the Bosphorus are strong and unpredictable, and watching their players navigate safe passage has caused many a fan to become an emotional wreck.
Man of the match Demiral put block after block in. He cramped up and needed to take on fluids behind the goal. His partner Abdulkerim Bardakci needed left-back Ferdi Kadioglu to become a physio and stretch out his thigh. When Austria pulled one back, their coach Ralf Rangnick was convinced that, if the game had gone to extra time, his team would have been the ones to progress.
“Turkey were exhausted and we had a physical advantage,” he said.
But their goalkeeper Mert Gunok came to the rescue, scooping a Christoph Baumgartner header up and away to safety in stoppage time when the ball looked behind him. It was one of the saves of the tournament and clinched a win few predicted.
Austria’s players collapsed to the ground in despair as their opponents gathered around the perimeter of the centre circle and led the Turkish end in a raucous series of call-and-response chants.
Turkey prevail (James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images)
“Tonight went beyond tactics and game plans,” Montella said. “The team really had soul today. I saw Turkish heart. That’s what I love about this country. There’s passion. There’s love. It’s visceral. I’m happy to have handed our Turks here in Germany a bit of pride — Turks all over the world and Turks back home.”
Three and a half hours after full time, horns were being honked in thoroughfares and town squares up and down Germany. The host nation’s other home team had won.
GO DEEPER
The chaos of Austria vs Turkey: Part Bundesliga, part South America, part lower-league
(Top photo: Masashi Hara/Getty Images)
