Turkey’s win over Georgia gave me a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time

Opinion Chief Football Writer

This was a celebration of football in its rawest, purest form

June 18, 2024 7:23 pm(Updated 7:36 pm)

Real Madrid’s Arda Guler celebrates scoring for Turkey against Georgia (Photo: Getty)

Turkey 3-1 Georgia (Muldur 25?, Guler 65?, Akturkoglu 90+7? | Mikautadze 32?) WESTFALENSTADION — It is the last minute of the first group stage game for both Turkey[1] and Georgia[2], so why does it feel like the last days of Rome, an orgy of colour and energy that is pulling 80,000 people into its orbit?

A goalkeeper has gone up for an equaliser. Five seconds later, a midfielder is through on goal. None of this is normal and now we never want to watch normal again.

Borussia Dortmund’s[3] Yellow Wall will never change colour permanently, but never can it have made more noise than when it went red for an evening. The opening matches of Euro 2024[4] have been raucous and rampant, but you’ve not seen or heard anything like this before. The motorways up from the south to Dortmund were filled with cars waving Turkish flags and horns sounding every time they were forced to come to a stop on the lesser roads into the city.

There are an estimated three million people of Turkish descent in Germany. They could have sold out the Westfalenstadion several times over. Those inside made enough noise for each of those absent.

Uefa charges will land, and they will be appropriate. We cannot laud the best bits and ignore the worst and call ourselves true witnesses. The violence before the game[5], when Turkish and Georgian supporters taunted each other and then rushed together, forced armed police to intervene. That is unacceptable, crossing the line with a generous leap.

Everything else was a celebration of international football in its rawest, purest form that laughed at any attempt from those in power to impose homogeneity.

The power of the noise made it hard to think and that characteristic seemed to pass via osmosis into a group of players who were equally as liable to do something comically poor as sensationally good. As ever, that makes for the best entertainment. The setting helps.

The Westfalenstadion is Europe’s best at producing an atmosphere, although Tuesday’s crowd could have hosted a festival in a library. The rain before the game was incessant and mixed with the smoke of flares to give the occasion a mystical, silvery quality. These are the laboratory conditions for obsessions to be birthed.

Anyone below the age of 10 taken to Turkey vs Georgia will likely become a groundhopper or pin badge collector or be forced to move house in their 40s to store their collection of football club mugs. The moments that mattered were astoundingly beautiful. Mert Muldur’s first goal felt sent from above, a dipping cleared ball landing onto a right foot that half-cushioned, half-wellied a volley into the top corner to send Turkish players streaming around in disbelief and the decibels rising to the point of discomfort.

That may be named Goal of the Tournament or it may not have been the best of the match. Again: that sort of game. Georgia deserve nothing but credit for their part and their heart.

Stunned by an immediate second goal that was ruled out for a marginal offside, in a single moment that agreed that they had little to lose and everything to gain by incisive, relentless counter attacks. Georges Mikautadze’s goal was of lesser quality than the other two, but a bronze medal on this podium is no insult. Scoring your nation’s first ever major tournament goal is far greater reward.

Turning a 2-0 lead into a 1-1 draw is nobody’s idea of fun. As the second half wandered at a half-job away from Turkey, the masses of red grew twitchy and irritable. The vociferous claims for free-kicks and throw-ins became intense to the point of mutiny.

The high-pitched whistles that met every spell of Georgian possession would be the chosen soundtrack of the devil and he would probably pick a similar volume. Georgia had the lesser team but the superstar of the moment, Khvicha “Kvaradona” Kvaratskhelia. But Turkey believe that they possess tomorrow’s boy, their best individual talent in a generation.

Arda Guler is 19 years old and has already scored six league goals for Real Madrid[6] despite starting only six times last season. If limited opportunities forge greater hunger to impress, his winner will keep him and his nation sated for several days. There is a swagger to Guler that is reinforced by his ability to avoid physical contact from wannabe aggressors as he glides forward with the ball.

His curled shot, from at least 25 yards out and never less than one yard from Giorgi Mamardashvili’s gloves[7], was extraordinarily composed, given the age and the circumstances. So rarely is the perfect starter and main course followed by the tastiest pudding. Fear not here.

There will be other games along soon. When the big nations meet each other much further down the line, sheer reputation tends to draw a thick veil over the events of a major tournament’s early days. But worry not: nobody is forgetting this one, the day when the Yellow Wall went red and the fervour and fever of the occasion peaked beyond reason.

Those here will tell their children and friends about this one in years to come.

We should all probably do the same.

References

1. ^ Turkey (inews.co.uk)
2. ^ Georgia (inews.co.uk)
3. ^ Borussia Dortmund’s (inews.co.uk)
4. ^ Euro 2024 (inews.co.uk)
5. ^ The violence before the game (inews.co.uk)
6. ^ Real Madrid (inews.co.uk)
7. ^ Giorgi Mamardashvili’s gloves (inews.co.uk)