On Sunday night, the federal police distributed a wonderful aerial photo of the Berlin Olympic Stadium via a social network, but it was misleading. The roof was illuminated in the German national colors, suggesting that the walls were firmly in German hands. Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! During the international match between Germany and Turkey (2:3), the stands were mostly populated by Turkish supporters – which was particularly felt by the Turkish-born captain of the DFB team. Ilkay Gündogan had to listen to a lot of chauvinistic insults and – like former DFB player Mesut Özil at the same place years ago – was whistled at every time he touched the ball. The Turkish team, on the other hand? It was celebrated in Berlin like in Istanbul.
It was anything but surprising that the Turkish national team felt like fish in water because of this. The Turks found the atmosphere promising, especially in terms of perspective, because Turkey has qualified for the 2024 European Championship in Germany – and is hoping for similar support from the Turkish diaspora there. “We saw that this could be a small home European Championship for us,” said Kaan Ayhan, who was born in Gelsenkirchen and wore the captain’s armband for the Turkish national team on Saturday. “I alone could have handed out more than a hundred cards,” explained Ayhan, who was not only impressed by the atmosphere but also by the performance of Kenan Yildiz, 18.
Yildiz from Regensburg was not only the shooter of the impressive 2-1 win – a shot from the left corner of the six-yard box under the crossbar after a long pass from Ayhan – he also repeatedly provided relief on the left side of the attack. “It’s good when you have your young gun dancing around on the wing,” said Ayhan. “He showed what he was made of.”
Salihamidzic “perhaps didn’t do the job that one or the other would have done,” criticizes Matthäus
From what you hear, that’s a lot. Yildiz comes from FC Bayern’s youth ranks, but in 2022 he moved to Juventus in Turin on a free transfer. It can be heard from those close to the player that he didn’t have the feeling that FC Bayern really believed in him; Record national player Lothar Matthäus explained on RTL that the former sports director Hasan Salihamidzic in this case “may not have done the job that one or the other would have done”. At the time, Salihamidzic attributed the fact that Yildiz left FC Bayern to “financial demands” that FC Bayern did not want to meet.
In Turin, Yildiz stalked the Juventus first team through the youth teams, which have beautiful names like “Primavera”, meaning spring, or “NextGen”, meaning next generation. In the current season he made five short appearances in Serie A. On Saturday, Yildiz played his second senior international match for Turkey, which means he has “decided” to play for his father’s home country – his mother is German. “He will play an important role in his club and for us,” said captain Ayhan. Possibly already at the home European Championships.