EURO 2008 DIARY DAY 14: SEMI’S-FINAL RADNESS WINS QUARTER-FINAL MADNESS (Turkiye … 1 Hrvatska .. 1, a.e.t. Turkiye win 3-1 on penaltiye)

Turkey’s name on the trophy? Well, when you’re locked in a quarter-final chess match and, with 15 minutes left, bring on a sub called “Semi”, and he then scores with the very last kick of injury time of extra-time after you’ve spent the vast majority of the game struggling to get out your own half …? Yeah, well, that would make even the most stolidly unsuperstitious punters begin to feel the fissures in their cold, hard reason. Semih Senturk sends Turks into semis. Get yer head around that. Here, I’ll help ye …

I firmly believe Rangers would never have reached last season’s UEFA Cup final if Celtic hadn’t done so five years previously. I firmly belive we would never have won our first European trophy in 1972 if Celtic hadn’t done so five years previously. I firmly believe the only reason Barcelona are the most succesful club in the history of both the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and the Inter-City Fairs Cup is because Real Madrid are the most successful club in the history of the European Cup and Champions League. Man City won their last league title one year after Man United secured the English First Division. Man City won their only European trophy just two years after Man United won their first. Had it not been for Heysel, Everton would have won their first European cup and probably a few more, on the heels of their Cup-Winners’ Cup victory in 1985 - all as a result of finally catching up with Liverpool’s European legend. Rivals inspire rivals. The closer the rivalry, the more parallel the achievements.

For centuries - for millenia - Turkey have hated Greece and vice versa. For two years, Greece had to sit back and endure the fact Turkey finished third in the 2002 World Cup, when the Parthenon posse could barely reach a major finals or score a single goal whenever they did. So, in 2004, Greece won the European Championships, OUTRIGHT. Toga-tastic! And for four years Turkey have had to suffer their most hated rivals basking in an actual trophy success.

But the bonus is, when you see a hated rival do it - when you see a CLOSE rival, with whose methods you are oh so familair with, attaining a great success - it not only fills you with bilious envy, it also makes you realise that, provided that rival is no bigger than yourself and especially if you have every chance of beating that rival in a one off game, home or away, there is absolutely no reason you cannot go out and repeat their international feats on the bigggest stages. Derby rivals can make you suffer like no other, but they also provide the inspiration to achieve more. As Nietszche said when his best mate ran off with his burd - “if I’m gonna go on, I must learn how to turn this muck into gold”. Turkey have taken the shit rained upon them by EURO 2004 and used it fertilise their own bid for soccer immortality.

During the course of Euro 2004, Greece were written off after every victory, every advancement, as having “gone as far as they can”. By the end of the tournament they had beaten the hosts in both the opening game and the final, as well as eliminating the holders in the quarter-finals and the tournament favourites in the semis. Yet still the Jim Beglins of the world maintain Greece were just lucky (In a way no home nation has ever been lucky in fifty years of the European Championships mind, but - hey - no worries - I’m sure there’s logic in there somewhere, Jim … you played at Heysel in 1985 so I can’t blame ye for being fucked-up and bitter when ye can’t really dwell on yer greatest ever achievement). Turkey, being close enough to Greece to hate them, know that there is no reason they can’t do the same. They pumped Greece 4-1 away during the qualifiers for this tournament (That’s another unwritten rule of derby rivalries: Scotland at Wembley in 67, Rangers in the Ibrox old firm derby of September 67, Ayr United putting Kimarnock out the Scottish Cup the season after Killie’d won it, Barcelona being the first team to defeat Real Madrid in the European Cup: Yer bitterest rival will always be the first one to burst yer bubble) so the Bosphorous Boys know first hand that it can be done: “They win a trophy, we pump them, the logic is simple … even if Logic is a slightly whiffy Greek thing”.

Greece’s schtick in 2004 was to defend like demons and score one on the counter - they scored only one goal in each of the knock-out rounds but conceded ZERO. People couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Turkey’s schtick seems to be to allow their opponent to take the lead after dominating play and - just when that opponent thinks they’ve secured progress - Turkey effect the latest of possible come-backs. When they came back to beat Switzerland with an injury-time clincher most observers thought “yeah but Switzerland are pish”. True. When Fatih Terim’s men then came from 2-0 down with quarter of an hour to go to beat The Czechs 3-2 and make the quarters, pundits and commentators focussed on Petr Cech’s horrendous clanger and saw the game itself as a one-off. The injury-time winners and late come-backs had become a theme, yes, but what Turkey did to the heavyweight, dominant Czechs was far different to what they did to plucky but poor Switzerland. Just a coincidence, the late goals - surely?

But now there can be no doubt. Turkey played their best football of last night’s match in the first fifteen minutes of extra time. Like Greece in 2004 taking inspiration from every passing moment they didn’t concede, Turkey get more confident when the 90 minutes has come and gone. When the Fourth official’s borad goes up, they know it’s now THEIR time. I said at the beginning of this tournament that Austria were the only side who could truly shock me by lifting the trophy - and the co-hosts were far from disgraced in any of their games, never losing by more than 1-0. Before the quarter-finals I said that Turkey were the wild cards but that they were so wild, so insance with passion, that they could not be discounted. The European Championships have always been a far shorter, far more intense tournament than the World Cup finals, even if they have quadroupled in size since their inception. Unlike the FIFA showpiece, The Euros give a team enough time to find a belief and a rythm but are over before the big guns can grind everyone down through the depth of their squad and the sheer weight of dawning history. Turkey, like Denmark in 1992 and Greece in 2004, can be in the final before they’ve had time to get tired or worried. And then it’s just one more game and yer home as heroes. Those who persisted in writing off Greece all through EURO 2004 cannot now do the same with the Turks.

Journos and punters alike have been looking at the increasing injuries and suspensions hitting Fatih Terim’s side all through this tournament. But people did that with Richard Moller-Nielsen Denmark in 1992. Michael Laudrup had fallen out with the coach and didn’t go to Sweden. Kim Vilfort’s daughter was critically ill in hospital. Jon Jensen had never had a shot at goal, far less scored before. During the semi win over Holland some Danish bloke’s knee cap was seen descending down his shin by millions of horrified TV viewers. Kim Vilfort and Jon Jensen scord the only goals of their win over Germany in the final.

When Germany play Turkey in Basel on Wednesday it will be “NEVER WRITE THEM OFF, HISTORICALLY” versus “NEVER WRITE THEM OFF at EURO2008″. Unfortunately for the Turks, Germany are the one country on earth least likely to underestimate an opponent or become in any way cocky about having a result in the bag. Unfortunately, for Germany, no team at the European championships knows Germany and German football better than the Turks. Some of them ARE German.

Germany are now the only bet I have left in this summer’s European Championships. They’re my biggest, yes - a whole THIRTY GREAT BRITISH POUNDS (Whoooo-hoooo!) but I would have been guaranteed a financial, as well as anorak and emotional interest, in next week’s final had last night’s game gone the other way. And, for all of sixty-odd seconds it looked like it might well go the other way. Only the entire planet agreed with me on that when Klasnic scored in 119 minutes. Croatia were my last wee back-up bet. “Luckily”, I’m no punter. Instead of thinking I’d lost £120.00 last night, I’m thinking I only lost a tenner, my stake. I only bet on big summer tournaments because I can’t help forming so many stupid opinions beforehand that I have to back a few of them up lest they actually come true and one of the Gamblers Anonymous rejects at my work does a Jim Bowen on me and tells me “here’s what ye could’ve won…”. I was betting against myself the minute I put money on three different teams to win the tournament and did only one of them each way - Greece are WELL out - and my fiver on Mario Gomez to finish tournament top scorer has to be the biggest jinxing since I declared the Titanic unsinkable. Had Croatia won last night I would have had my two bets for the cup meeting in the semis, ensuring I’d have one final financial hurrah next Sunday. But my “gambling” isn’t really about the dough, is it. I’ve already spent all my potential winnings on excited text messages to mates during these games. No, it ain’t about the monetary reward. It was worth a tenner to have the extra emotional involvement in what was the most spectacular end to a major international finals match I have ever witnessed.

It was only the second 90-minute 0-0 of these finals and, from the moment early in the first half when Olic hit the bar from eight yards out, it did have “scoreless” stamped all over it. The horrific BBC coverage actually revels in the prospect of any game not involving England being a poor one. And, of course, the Turks defending deep against a Croatia who couldn’t seem to penetrate, was an easy target for the wilfully bitter “analysis” from the entire British Broadcasting Corporation ensemble on Friday evening. How anyone could fail to focus on the tactical and emotional gravitas of this game, or the sheer spectacle provided by Turks and Croats pouring donw the slopes of the montainous Ernst Happel Stadion and clogging the balmy atmposphere with stultifying passion, would be bewildering to us had it not already been firmly established that ITV and the Beeb are being utterly negligent in trying to sell this tournament. Goals and chances were rare - yes - and for long periods it seemed to the more naive that this game had been served up purely to remind you what international tournaments are USUALLY like. But this is EURO 2008 - the most intenseley brilliant international finals since Yugoslavia 1976 - so if this game was to go to penalties, it had to do so in startling style. A predicatble seeing out of 120 goalless minutes just wouldn’t do.

The spectacle began to get more gripping, for me, in the second period of extra -time. Much as we Scots like to think of ourselves as the most fervernt fans in the world, the most dedicated, in situations like those facing the Croats last nigt - quarter of an hour away from penalties - we can’t help geting nervous and a wee bit quiet. Not in Hrvatska though. When those Sahovnica-strewn masses need their team, their team delivers - and when their team needs them, the smoke bombs and flares start going off and the noise levels go through the roof of the even Vienna’s old Prater Park. It was fucking incredible just seeing and hearing it on my telly. If Germany do win this tournament, I’ll put my winnings towards buying a new HD telly, just in case the Croat fans are ever on my screen again. I saw a few dozen of them giving a wee burst of patriotic fervour outside the North Stand before February’s Hampden friendly. But I was next to them all through EURO 96 and they seem to have got even more insane. WHAT A SUPPORT!

And, of course, the Turkish fans are all broring bookworms, sitting there reading their programme notes and barely uttering a word! What an atmosphere in extra-time and what an ending! This potent mix of patriotism, ethnicity, religion and the memory of how the Turks and Bosnians bonded during the qualifyers seemed barely capable of standing a goal, far less a last-minute winner. Rustu Recber was at fault. Remember Recber? He was amazing during the 2002 World Cup finals - better than Kahn, who got the best keeper of the tournament award. I remember Recber at Ibrox when Fenerbahce drew 0-0 with us in a Champions League qualifyer and Michael Mols was sent off (Kahn, Recber - BOTH bad for Michael Mols in the Champions League!). That boot polish eye-liner arrangement he had was gone last night. It wasn’t ever to deflect the glare of the floodlights. Like the manager of Spinal Tap with his cricket bat, it was just affectation. But Rustu seemed as if he could have done with something to deflect the blinding panic last night when he raced out to the side of his six-yard box and allowed Modric to dink in a perfect chip for the LEGENDARY Ivan Klasnic to bundle/head home in the 119th minute.

I was out my seat. Gambling was on my mind and so was the fact that, on succesive nights, I’d seen Miroslav Klose and Ivan Klasnic heading home quarter-final goals. The two of them formed my favourite strike parternship when they played together at Werder Bremen and, after being present in Munich as Klose scored two in the World Cup opening match of 2006, it had been a buzz to see Klasnic in the felsh at Hampden this season after his long lay off. Now here he was knocking home the winner. The entire Croatia bench was on the pitch and I did go straight into Rangers/Scotland fan mode and start focussing on the potential problems. Even though I instinctively felt the game was won. Remember Celtic becoming the first team to beat us after our 44- game run on 1992/93? They were so busy celebrating going 2-0 up at Parkhead that we almost walked in a goal because the ref re-started without a few of them after several attempts to get them all back into their own half. Well, I thought Croatia were gonnae do the same last night. But the centre was re-taken with every Croat in his own half. Games was won … clearly! … wasn’t it?

Already the BBC’s Steve Wilson and Mark Lawrenson were mocking Recber’s mistake in wholly infantile terms. They were telling us how distinguished his career had been to date, how many caps he’d won and that this, his 117th would be his last and what a calamitous, embarrassing way to end his affiliation with the national team. Fuck me. Lawrenson is all about focussing on the negative. No matter how exciting or dramatic or near-tragic the situation, he simply cannot have any empathy or optimism coming down his micrphone. He’ll find the criticism of the team who lost the goal before he ever finds praise for the side scoring it. And, for Recber’s sake in the face of such gleeful hostility, I was happy he lobbed in the final desperate ball which dropped from the heads of three Croats and landed at the feet of Semih. I knew it was gonnae fall for a Turk, that ball. I knew he would rifle it. He did. Bang! - goal! - equaliser! - and the most effecting end to a game I’ve ever watched as a neutral. Coz that’s when it did end. Croatia were never gonnae get their heads right for a penalty shoot-out after being up so high then plunged so low in a two minute spell. Recber, like a true great, not only saved the decisive kick but was then all about consoling his opponents rather than celebrating the win. He was a total gent and, unlike Lawrenson and the man we’re supposed to adore, Cristiano Ronaldo, the game has taught nig Recber some humility and compassion.

So a whole tournament without seeing Croatia in their home strip but just to see Hrvatska play is to know all about them. They give it their all. Great footballing nation. And so are Turkey - even if they were wearing a Middlesborough strip last night … and Tuncay, of The Boro, was one of three booked by the American Soap Star Bad Guy-looking ref (”sob! I know he’s a bastard, Barbara - but I just can’t help loving him!”) who will now miss the semi gegen Deutschland . But The Turks didn’t care. They know they have the sign.

It’s been a tournament of team goals. Only one scored direct from a free kick and that, of course, was by those masters of the pragmatic, those kings of the shortest route between two points, DEUTSCHLAAAAAND. But Germany (first goal v Portugal), Spain (Fourth goal v Russia), Russia (Second v Sweden) and - maybe most spectacularly of all - Holland (second and third v Italy and France) have all provided some of the best passing-on-the-run soccer orgasms ever seen. So Croatia and Turkey go and seal this tournament’s fame by lumping two high balls into the box and creating historic mayhem. It’s just to prove that it’s not primarily the skills or tactics which are lighting up this tournament - it’s just the sheer desire of everyone taking part to give it their all.

Not that you’ll be allowed to acknowledge this if you live in ITV or BBC1’s Britain. For example, last night Mark Lawrenson commented on Howard Webb’s failure to secure the reffing of any of the knock-out games with “I find that difficult to believe”. He’s right in there with the idea that the English team of officials should have been allowed to continue after their involvemet in the Poland-Austria and Spain-Greece games. Fair enough. Hardly surprised by that, Lawro assesment. If the actual results of football matches over the last 42 years hasn’t convinced them England are not the best team in the world then why should we expect something as almost arbitrary as a judgemet by a panel of experts to convince ENGERLISH broadcasting to see sense or, far worse, objectivity.

You won’t hear about EURO 2008 again after next Sunday, just as we never hear about EURO 1976 expect to mention Panenk’a penalty winner in the final, not so much because it was an audacious chip but because it was over Sepp Maier and England could almost never beat the Germans themselves so have to wallow in the achievements of others in that respect. Last night, by the way, we were told by Lineker that Germany were ALWAYS meeting weakened, tired teams in the semi-finals of major tournaments … and this from the broadcasters who had the cheek to ask if Jens Lehmann was “getting his excuses in early” when he picked up a patch of the dodgy pitch before Thursday’s quarter-final against Portugal! What Lineker and Shearer - both scorers agsinst the Germans in major sami-finals - don’t want you to know is that Germany are simply ALWAYS IN major semi-finals, And England aren’t.

The Germans were in a major semi as soon as they went to Yugolsavia in 1976. In the old days of the European championships, the “finals” simply consisted of the four winning quarter finalists (last eight was on a home and away basis between all the qualifiying group winners) playing two semis, the final and a third/fourth place play-off in two major cities in one of the competing countries. Between Belgrade and Zagreb thirty two years ago, Yugoslavia, Holland, West Germany and Czechoslovakia provided four matches which all went to extra-time, in which no team failed to score, in which a minimum of four goals were shared between each side, and the last of which ended with a penalty shoot-out which even English TV remembers. West Germany came from 2-0 down in the semi and the final. You wont here this on English television, unless it’s hushed away on BBC3 or ITV4, but this has long been regarded by experts as the most concentrated series of high-quality international football ever witnessed.

And in 1984 Michel Platini put on a one-man exhibition of Herculean porportions in leading France to a sensational European Championship win on home soil. The semi-final win over Portugal in Marseilles was the stuff of legend - and we only got recorded highlights of everything but the final - coz no home nation had qualified. These days we’re at least getting all the games live. These days there’s at least so many English-based players involved in major tourneys that we’ll have enough “involvement” to convince British broadcasters to show them as they happen. Perhaps it’s too much to ask that we get objectivity too. Maybe in thirty years time.

Maybe by the 2030s we’ll be allowed to watch football on a medium which is biased towards only one thing - football.

Russia are about to play Holland. I can’t express how excited I am about this match. All day I’ve felt as if I’m living Massive Attack’s Mezzanine album. I have no financial involvement, I have no Russian or Dutch family or friends that I know of. I don’t even have any particular anorak love of either nation. I just love their legend and, more importantly, I’ve seen the way they’ve played through this tournament and I’ve seen the way this tournament’s going. I’m about to look out a blank video tape and press “record”. If it wasn’t for the atmosphere at these games, I may well have pressed “mute” too - but the BEEB and ITV will never stop us talking about this tournament. Not now - not ever. I’d have loved it so much more if Scotland had been involved, yes, but I love it nonetheless.

Enjoy, troops. Enjoy.

EURO 2008 Microphone League standings after Day 14:

Whatshisface Wilson&Lawrenson 0/10