German and Turkish fans geared up on Tuesday for their teams’ Euro 2008 semi-final, with police and community officials predicting that Wednesday evening will see frenetic but peaceful sporting rivalry across Germany. The eagerly-awaited match is being played at St Jakob Park in Basel, Switzerland but the excitement is building in Germany which has about 2.7 million people of Turkish origin, more than in any other country in western Europe.The flags of both nations have been fluttering side by side from buildings and cars since the start of the three-week tournament. “For us, ‘we’ means both Germany and Turkey so one of our teams is guaranteed a place in the final and we’re very happy,” Kenan Kolat, chairman of the umbrella group for Germany’s Turkish communities, said on Tuesday. Organisers in Berlin said they had extended the ‘Fan Mile’ running through the city centre to 1.2 km (0.7 miles). Wednesday’s match is a chance to improve political relations between the two nations after they went through a tense period earlier this year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan clashed over integration after Erdogan said in a speech in Cologne in February that Turks should learn German but not give up their Turkish identities.
