Euro 2008Germany, Turkey and Jumbled Loyalties 
June 25, 2008
By NICHOLAS KULISHBERLIN — A game is not just a game when it pits the national soccer teams of the deeply intertwined countries of Germany and Turkey against each other.
When the German team takes the field Wednesday night against Turkey in Basel, Switzerland, in the semifinals of the European Championship, it will also face two German natives on the Turkish side. The versatile midfielder Hamit Altintop hails from the West German city of Gelsenkirchen and defender Hakan Balta is a Berliner.
The World Cup gives national teams the ultimate soccer bragging rights, but the neighborly rivalries in the European event make for what at times feels like a more intense tournament. The frenzy has reached a peak over Wednesday’s intriguing semifinal because of the estimated 2.7 million people either of Turkish citizenship or heritage living in Germany, the country’s largest minority.
With both teams still alive, it has been doubly festive here and up to this point mutually supportive, as many Germans have cheered on the Turks and vice versa. Each Turkish victory in the tournament has brought enthusiastic fans draped in the country’s red flag onto the streets, where they set off firecrackers and shot bottle rockets into the night sky, with parties often lasting until morning. German fans have packed pubs and beer gardens for their team’s run to the semifinals.
Now the country is practically humming with anticipation for the match, with an overriding optimism for a nationwide party spiked with an edge of nervousness that a friendly sporting rivalry could spill over into something more serious in the streets. Police officials say they are prepared, especially in Berlin where some 500,000 people are expected at the public viewing area at the Brandenburg Gate.
All of Europe has been in the grip of what it calls football fever for the past two and a half weeks as the continent’s best teams have squared off. The tournament has given audiences some displays of masterful soccer, but also more than a few intriguing subplots as the increasingly mobile populations around Europe and the world create an overlapping web of confused loyalties.
Mixed allegiances are hardly new to international soccer. Players often duel against teammates and friends from their professionals squads. Some coaches know no borders. Russia’s coach, Guus Hiddink, celebrated his team’s latest victory over his home country, the Netherlands.
And, as in the Germany-Turkey matchup, there are often political overtones. A matchup in the final between Germany and Russia, which plays Spain in the other semifinal, could well exhaust a decade’s worth of World War II references.
The Germans already faced Robert and Niko Kovac, brothers born in West Berlin, when they lost to Croatia in the group round. Not that German soccer fans are in any position to complain about the Croats or the Turks, seeing how their team beat neighboring Poland, 2-0, in their tournament opener with both goals from Lukas Podolski, one of the squad’s three Polish natives.
Though Austria and Switzerland have been the co-hosts of the European event, the ouster of both countries’ teams in the group stage meant that they were not the stars of their own show. If the most memorable symbol of Germany’s successful hosting of the World Cup in 2006 was the German flag displayed without shame or second-guessing, the motif this time around for German spectators are the twin Turkish and German flags flapping from countless car windows around the country.
“Of course my heart lies first with the German team,” said Rainer Krause, 63, a Berlin native who bought a red Turkish flag as well as a German one at a store in the heavily Turkish Neukölln neighborhood, where he works., “But over the decades the loyalties have grown together, there are such strong feelings of connection.”
Altintop, who plays for the German club champion, Bayern Munich, agrees. In an interview this week with Spiegel Online, he declared, “I owe much, actually everything, to Germany.” But when asked whether he considered himself German at heart, Altintop, the Turkish team’s mainstay, reinforced the sense of dual loyalty, saying: “No. Maybe I’m both.”
The Turkish side will need everything Altintop can give it, with the team whittled down by injuries and suspensions to just 15 players — 11 starters and 4 potential substitutes. The possibility that one of the team’s backup goalies could play forward has added to their underdog appeal.
Some Germans have gone so far as to switch allegiances from their home team to Turkey, a sentimental favorite of the tournament if not quite a Cinderella, considering its run to the semifinals in the 2002 World Cup. “It’s only fair,” said Rosie Lambrecht, who was out shopping for a Turkey T-shirt on Tuesday morning and who roots with her Turkish friends and neighbors in Neukölln. “They’ve never won the tournament.”
The Turkish team has teetered on the brink of elimination from the beginning, losing its opener to Portugal and trailing much of the second game against Switzerland after a first-half goal by none other than Hakan Yakin, a Swiss player from a Turkish family. The Turks pulled out the game against the Swiss with two second-half goals.
In the final group match against the Czech Republic, the theatrics really began, with Nihat Kahveci scoring twice in the closing minutes for an improbable come-from-behind 3-2 win. Against Croatia, the team tied the score in the closing moments of the match just minutes after a Croatia goal appeared to end the tournament for Turkey, and then prevailing in penalty kicks over a visibly demoralized Croatian team.
That set up the showdown with the Germans for the right to play in the final, which is hardly being treated as just another game. Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told a television news channel he hoped that “no attempts would be made to disturb a peaceful soccer party.”
After the match Friday between Turkey and Croatia, which got rough among the players at points, opposing fans in Vienna, where the match was played, threw bottles and paving stones at one another, leading to a dozen arrests. There were also arrests in the German city of Frankfurt, which like Berlin is hosting public screenings of the match.
“Certainly we’ve raised our security measures for the match,” said Thomas Feda, the managing director of the Frankfurt tourism board. “But the mood has been great for the matches, with lots of families bringing their children.” Feda said he expected a peaceful event, and added that there would be no separating of fans by their rooting interests.
“I think it will go great, whichever team wins,” said Murat Yalcin, 33, who works at a cafe in Neukölln back in Berlin. He was wearing a Turkey T-shirt, but said that if Germany wins, he would root for it in the final. “When you live here, when you were raised here, why root for anyone else?”
Steffen Scholz contributed reporting.Source
