Turkey can expect strong support from the Turkish-German community at Euro 2024. Germany can also

DUESSELDORF, Germany Six years ago, Ilkay Gündogan’s place in the German national team was in question following a photograph with the Turkish president. Now he is the team captain.

When Gündogan leads the German team against Scotland in their European Championship opener on Friday, he will be the first captain of Turkish heritage at a major tournament.

For some members of the large Turkish-German community, the Barcelona midfielder embodies a “hybrid identity” that is gaining ground even in the face of political gains to the anti-migration far right, said Caner Aver, a researcher at the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research in the German city of Essen.

Although Gündogan has to choose which country he will represent on the field, fans can support both. As the tournament approached, Aver bought a German national team shirt and a Turkish national team shirt for his 6-year-old son, cut them in half and sewed the halves together to make his own hybrid kit.

“I think there will be a lot of people who support both teams and who would probably be pleased if they met at some point in the semifinals or the final,” Aver told the Associated Press.

One of Germany and Turkey’s supporters is Osman Eroglu, goalkeeper and board member of Türkgücü Ratingen, a Turkish community football club on the outskirts of the Euro 2024 host city of Düsseldorf.

“For us, for people with a migration background in the third or fourth generation, after all, it is also a European Championship in our own country,” Eroglu told AP. “It’s a double joy because Turkey is also represented this year, so there are two teams straight away that you can support and keep your fingers crossed for.”

Others question whether players from minority groups could be scapegoats for German fans or the media if the team fails. Some even consider choosing Germany over Turkey an act of betrayal. Gündogan was particularly booed by some Turkish fans in a friendly against Germany in Berlin last year, which Turkey won 3-2.

When Gündogan and his teammate Mesut Özil, another German star of Turkish descent, posed for photos with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the lead-up to the 2018 World Cup, they faced specific criticism from the president of the German football federation at the time, Reinhard Grindel, who said that Erdogan did not sufficiently share the organization’s “values”.

After the World Cup, Özil leave the national team, citing a “sense of racism and disrespect” following anti-Turkish comments from far-right politicians and fans. Özil never played for Germany again and retired from football last year.

Younis Kamil is an academic and football coach of Sudanese and German origin who is working with a leading Turkish community organization in Germany and the national Olympic committee on a project around Euro 2024 and sports participation for people with a family history of migration .

Even with Gündogan as captain, there are few people of Turkish descent and other minority groups in coaching and authority roles in German football, Kamil said.

“There is still a gap between the possibility of identification with the German team, and I think one of the main reasons is the lack of representation in decision-making structures, and also the experiences of discrimination that young people have in their daily lives, ” Kamil told the AP.

The Turkish team has five German-born players and enjoys enthusiastic support.

“In Germany we will be like a host country,” said Turkish defender Ozan Kabak, who was born in Turkey but plays for his football club in Germany, in a recent interview. “A lot of Turks live here and I think whole stadiums will be full of Turks.”

The fans of the Turkish national team even surpassed the fans of Germany in the friendly in Berlin last year. Unfortunately for Kabak, he will not play when Turkey begin their Euro 2024 campaign on June 18, following a pre-tournament knee injury.

Turkey plays its first two Euro 2024 games against Georgia and Portugal in Dortmund before facing the Czech Republic in Hamburg. Both cities have many residents of Turkish heritage.

Many people of Turkish origin in Germany are descendants of “guest workers” who arrived during the Cold War. An economic boom after World War II meant that West Germany had an acute labor shortage.

A history of migration from places like Italy, Greece and Croatia — and, more recently, the arrival of refugees from Ukraine — means these teams will also be able to gain substantial local support.

This year also brings a significant legal change, as long-standing restrictions on dual nationality are lifted. abolishedmaking it much easier for naturalized German citizens to also hold Turkish passports.

“It’s not one or the other, it’s both and,” said Aver, the researcher who made his son a half-and-half shirt for Euro 2024. He hopes the tournament can help unite German society.

“It is important now, in a time of rising right-wing populism… to put diversity at the forefront,” he said. “Therefore, I hope and wish that fans will celebrate together, mourn together, and experience joy together.”

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