Turkey take a hefty set of numbers into tonight’s Euro 2024 meeting with Holland. There’s the estimated 200,000 Berliners of Turkish heritage, the vast majority committed to making the city hosting their quarter-final sound and feel like it’s a home contest. Then there’s the less helpful figures that punctuate the Turkish rollercoaster through the tournament so far: ten bookings — plus another for a member of the coaching staff — and, as of Friday, the most significant individual ban imposed on a participant at the competition, the two-match suspension Uefa handed to defender Merih Demiral for what has been deemed a politically charged gesture while he celebrated one of his two goals in the round of 16 victory over Austria.
Demiral shaped his hands into what is known as a “wolf” salute, associated, at least as far as the German government are concerned, with far-right extremism and specifically the Grey Wolves organisation. Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, had called on Uefa to take action before the governing body’s decision to effectively rule Demiral out of what remains of the tournament unless Turkey reach the final. The sanction, said Uefa, had been imposed on the player “for failing to comply with the general principles of conduct, for violating the basic rules of decent conduct, for using sports events for manifestations of a non-sporting nature and for bringing the sport of football into disrepute”.
“We think it’s an unfair ban,” Vincenzo Montella, the Turkey head coach, said. “It was not a political gesture and it has probably been misunderstood.” He would not be drawn in comparing the sanction against Demiral with Uefa’s lighter judgment on England’s Jude Bellingham, given a suspended one-match ban for a lewd gesture during the round of 16 match against Slovakia.
The Demiral issue, which had already provoked tit-for-tat summons for the Turkish and German ambassadors in Ankara and Berlin by governments in both countries, threatens to overshadow a compelling tie. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is expected to be at the Olympiastadion, defended Demiral’s gesture as “an expression of emotion” and likened the wolf symbol to other national emblems. “Has anyone remarked that there’s an eagle on Germany’s jersey, anyone said there’s a cockerel on France’s?” Erdogan asked reporters accompanying him on a state visit to Kazakhstan.
In the Berlin district of Kottbusser Tor, where Turkey’s bid to reach a second Euros semi-final is anticipated with huge flags draped from windows and balconies, those arguments were echoed. Rahmet, a waiter in a cafe preparing for a big-screen showing of Turkey-Holland, suggested that Demiral’s gesture was no different to an observant Christian footballer crossing himself. At a Turkish bookshop, the manager, who did not want to be named, sighed: “I hope Turkey win, but the trouble is, football is never just football.”
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Much of the football Turkey have so far given to Euro 2024 has been riveting. They have emerged victorious from perhaps the most watchable pair of games so far, their opening fixture over Georgia and the high-energy 2-1 win over Austria that earned them a place in the last eight. “This team has a soul,” Montella said, “and it’s hard to build a soul, so that’s something, beyond results, that makes me proud.”
He cited some numbers of his own: “a very high amount of goalscoring chances” and the fact that “we are youngest team left in the tournament,” the latter both a potential blessing but, Montella acknowledged, “also factor in terms of emotions”.
“We’re not so used to playing at this sort of level as some other teams, so it’s important we manage emotions and transform them into positive energy,” he said. “We need to be humble but confident.”
As a symbol of that energy, Montella gave a nod to Turkey’s dynamic left back Ferdi Kadioglu, a candidate for the outstanding player in his position at these Euros. For the versatile Fenerbahce man, a meeting with Holland is especially resonant. “My mother is Dutch and my father is Turkish,” Kadioglu explained. Until 2½ years ago, the Arnhem-born Kadioglu was climbing the ladder of the Holland national team, up to under-21 level. He then committed to Turkey internationally. On Saturday evening he will face players he knew as colleagues in Dutch age-group sides.
Besides missing Demiral, who had not been in Montella’s first XI at the start of the tournament but was outstanding in defence and at attacking set-pieces against Austria, the midfielders Orkun Kokcu and Ismail Yuksek are unavailable because of accumulated yellow cards. Captain Hakan Calhangolu does return from suspension, however, boosting Turkey’s considerable dead-ball expertise. Both goals against Austria came from corners, swung in from the artful left foot of Arda Guler.
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Guler, the Real Madrid teenager, was “getting better the more he plays, even within matches,” Montella said, urging that Madrid, where Guler had few opportunities in the first team last season but tended to use them well, should elevate him in their crowded hierarchy of forwards. “He needs to play regularly. His talent can take him anywhere.”
Turkey’s support can carry the side far, too, Montella believes. “Our fans have been extraordinary, and I expect great support,” he said. “In November we played here in Berlin against Germany [a 3-2 Turkish victory] and the stadium seemed almost entirely full of our fans. We’ll certainly hear them.”