Nowhere in the world will you find football fans comparable to the Turkish fans. Not only do lots of people wear the national colours when there is an international match featuring their own Turkish team,
they also start convoys of vehicles through the cities waving lots of flags, scarves and national T-shirts. Nor does this sort of thing only happen when there is an important match for the Turkish team. The same thing can happen when one of the popular club teams of the National League is playing. In fact, the fans can get even more excited.If the "town" team wins, it can be unbelievable. There are long queues of cars, carrying lots of enthusiastic fans wearing the kit of the winning team, with flags and scarves fixed to the cars, more outside than in, with the fans shouting and using anything they can on the car to make a noise.
Once seen, never forgotten!
All this enthusiasm has come about because there has been lot of success for the national team during the last few years. When Turkey finished third at the World Championship two years ago, this led to an even greater surge in popularity.Don't forget, though, that the teams of the Turkish League are quite successful and comparable to the big European teams. There have been couple of Cup Finals during the last few years featuring Turkish teams. Another important fact is that there are now lots of well-known international players from other countries playing for Turkish clubs.
Today, the big teams are Fenerbahce Istanbul, Galatasaray and Besiktas, who play close to the centres of the cities. They have become much more than just football teams. Everywhere in Turkey you see adults or young people playing football. If it is too hot during the day, they simply play at night.
Another type of football has also become quite popular "beach football". Small teams play against each other on the beach. It has even become international and is now well organized with lot of fans. There is such a tournament on the beach of Alanya and lots of international teams take part in it.
A complete area of the beach is closed, tiers of seats are erected for the spectators and away they go.
This now happens every year!
