When Turkey beat Germany in mid-November in Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the second Turkish goal came from Kenan Yildiz, a Bavarian native who, like many German players of Turkish origin before him, made the choice of the “Milli Takim”.
That evening, the visitors’ 3-2 victory was celebrated by two-thirds of the stadium, in the stands covered with a sea of red and white Turkish flags.
A happy omen for the Euro which starts on Friday in Munich? “We will probably play like at home,” said Vincenzo Montella, the coach of the Turkish team.
The Italian revealed on Friday evening the names of the twenty-six Turkish players selected for the competition.
Among them are five players born on German soil, including the young Juventus prodigy Kenan Yildiz, Salih Özcan, Champions League finalist with Borussia Dortmund, and the essential Hakan Çalhanoglu, captain of the selection and playing master of Inter Milan, 2024 Italian champions.
These players, who will face Portugal, Georgia and the Czech Republic in Group F, are many descendants of Turkish “guest workers” who arrived in West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
Their choice to wear the “Milli Takim” jersey, which delights Turkish supporters, regularly revives the debate on the failures of integration in Germany, where the largest Turkish community or of Turkish origin from abroad lives, approximately three million people.
“The fact that they choose Turkey is not necessarily the result of failed integration,” says Ahmet Toprak, professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Dortmund and author of research on the subject.
For him, these sometimes hesitant Turkish players who, for some, “only know Turkey through postcards”, make a choice that is above all “emotional”.
“Football is an emotional sport which is experienced with much more intensity in Turkey than in Germany (…) They also choose Turkey because they feel an emotional connection with this country through their parents, their grandparents. parents or their loved ones”, analyzes Ahmet Toprak, who also underlines that the Turkish Federation “actively approaches” young players of Turkish origin.
