Turkiye 3
Georgia 1
TURKIYE CHANNELLED THE manic energy of a magnificent occasion in Dortmund to open their European Championship with a blood-thumping, brain-scrambling win over Georgia.
They took the lead through Mert Muldur’s gorgeous volley, but Georgia, determined to approach their tournament debut boldly, equalised before half-time. Teenager Arda Guler, however, broke the game with a stunning curled finish in the second half and Turkiye then lived on frayed nerves before giving the scoreboard an unjust gloss by tapping into an empty net in the game’s final play.
The sultry air and surly skies gave the whole occasion a brooding, diabolic quality, and two hours prior to launch the heavens broke and soaked Dortmund in a rat-a-tat-tat artillery of rain. Fans sprinted in all directions outside the stadium, not knowing where they were going but certain that they had to move. A giant waterfall then materialised in one corner of the Westfalanstadion; water barrelling down on a couple of damned stewards who were heroically but unsuccessfully whooshing water away from beneath it. Fans clashed in another corner, squaring up to each other and hurling objects before police rushed in.
The day’s anarchical energy then soaked into the game itself. This was virtually a home game for Turkiye, given there are roughly seven million Turkish people living in Germany, many of them descendants of the Gastarbeiters, the guest workers invited to rebuild the Germany economy after the war.
They created an atmosphere of extraordinary intensity, turning the Yellow Wall into a kind of sonic barrier with a chorus of ear-splitting whistles anytime Georgia dared to have the ball.
The Georgian fans, greatly outnumbered, nonetheless made themselves heard by pouring raw and tangible emotion into their anthem.
Turkiye were the infamous Dark Horses of the previous Euros, where a crepuscular squad instead went and lost all three group games in a manner as leaky as the Dortmund stadium roof. This time around they’ve been refreshed, to the point that they’ve now rebranded as Turkiye.
Manager Vincenzo Montella has been faithful to the overhaul, and in starting Arda Guler and Kenan Yildiz, his side became the first to start two teenagers in a Euros game since Hungary did so in 1964.
Turkiye were instantly dominant, and Kaan Ayhan came agonisingly close to opening the scoring, slamming a shot from range against the inside of the post before seeing the ball skid across the goal-line and away.
The Georgian players looked at risk of melting in this roiling, ludicrous atmosphere. Willy Sagnol spent the opeing quarter-hour gesturing at his players, desperately trying to do some tactical rejig on the fly. The Georgian players continued to point at each other to tell them where they should have been, united in flushed befuddlement.
Turkyie’s goal arrived deservedly and and in spectacular fashion, right-back Mert Muldur meeting a dropping ball on the edge of the box with a sweet volley that flew into the top corner. It scored about 7/10 on the Benjamin Pavard scale.
The Turkish delirium lasted less than a minute, as they thought they then had to go about finding another heft of emotion to meet an instant second goal. Guler skated down into space down the right and crossed for Ayhan, whose contact was so poor it proved a deft touch on for Yildiz, who finished. But as all bliss broke loose in the ground, the only entity capable of separating itself from the day’s mad emotion, VAR, chalked it off for being offside.
Georgia, reprieved, began to play. Sagnol has been linked with the Irish job perhaps because his side play a similar system to Ireland, but they play it better. Their wing-backs are athletic and consistently pushed on to offer themselves for switches of play, while they have a few ballers not named Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
Striker Georges Mikautadze is one, and midfielder Giorgi Kochorashvili is another. Five minutes after the VAR call, Kochorashvili stood up his man at the edge of the box, beat him with a drop of the shoulder and a couple of stepovers, and then pulled the ball back for Mikautadze to scuff the ball in.
Georgia didn’t pause to admire their piece of history, and a few minutes later Mikautadze should have had them in front, pulling a volley wide from a delightful knock-down from wing-back Otar Kakabadze.
The game’s pace did not relent, with both sides taking it turns to storm up the pitch, interrupting the see-saw only to fly into tackles. At half-time a Georgia journalist stood up from the press box and stumbled punch-drunk down the steps to the concourse, cigarette hanging from his mouth.
Inhale. Exhale. Okay? Go.
Kvaratskhelia had his best moment shortly after the resumption, dancing down the left and picking out Mikautadze, whose touch and show was a little too slow and allowed Samet Akaydin throw himself in front to block.
But in this delirious sprint of a game, Georgia ultimately made the mistake of briefly slowing down. Once they did, the outlandishly talented Guler made them pay. Collecting the ball in too much space in the Georgia half, Guler trotted toward goal and opened up his body to curl a sublime shot into the top corner. A goal of the tournament contender from one of its potential breakout stars: precisely what the occasion deserved.
Georgia responded by resorting to their sheer bravery again, as the outstanding Kochorashvili bobbed and weaved his way into the penalty area before he saw a shot bounce back off the crossbar.
The frenzy continued to unspool. Hakan Calhanoglu took a punt from the halfway line because, really, why not, and substitute Yusuf Yazici’s header was acrobatically saved by Giorgi Mamardashvili.
Georgia continued to push for an equaliser, and six minutes of stoppage time proved ot be enough time for more than one heartbreak.
First Kvaratskhelia took off down the left once again, and saw another cross bounce across the Turkish box before Kochorashvili met it and sent the ball bouncing agonisingly the wrong side of the post.
Then, deep into the added time, Georgia won a free-kick which would clearly be put into the box. That was goalkeeper Mamardashvili’s prompt to sprint up to join in the fun. Kvaratskhelia’s set piece was wicked and was palmed by Gunok but made its way back out to substitute Davitashvili, who hammered a shot goalwards which was heroically blocked by the head of the splayed Akaydin.
Georgia played it double or quits: Mamardashvili stayed up for the corner and then the corner after that. But that corner broke down and away streaked Kerem Akturkoglu, sprinting down on the empty goal to tap in and pull the trigger on all manner of bedlam.
Given goal difference is a key factor in who decides which of the third-placed sides qualify, Georgia refused to play the percentages in the endgame. Instead they went for glory, but that is what the game is about.
Days like these remind you the battered old game can still deliver it.
