Euro 2008 - National Teams and International Players?

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Soccer fever has swept across Europe. No one's thinking about Ireland's rejection of the E-U reform treaty or the other political problems in Brussels. Right now, people across the continent are much more interested in things like penalty shoot-outs and who'll make the starting line-up. Of course, everyone wants their national team to do well -- but you could say that the real winner in the Euro 2008 competition will be Europe itself.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  The media in both Germany and Turkey described Wednesday night's semi-final as THE quintessential European match. Politicians noted that fans of both teams would be watching the game together, and said this was a good test of integration. At the outdoor big-screen viewing site in Berlin, there were German AND Turkish flags in abundance, and plenty of döner-kebap and curry wurst to snack on.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  David Odonkor "Integration" is also an important concept on the pitch. The German team features a number of players who have what's commonly referred to here as an "immigrant background" -- including Oliver Neuville, Kevin Kuranyi, Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez and David Odonkor. And then there's Lukas Podolski -- the Polish-born striker who scored both goals in Germany's 2-0 win over Poland earlier in Euro 2008. Ivan Klasnic, who was born in Hamburg, plays for Croatia -- and one of the key players on the Turkish side is Hamit Altintop, who hails from Gelsenkirchen.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  It seems that football offers a model for integration that could be applied on a much larger scale. But appearances can be misleading. Because in a tournament like this, it's all about "nations" -- the national team, the national coach and the national anthem.

What do you think? Euro 2008 - National Teams and International Players?

Write to us now at Quadriga@dw-world.de

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Our guests were:

Jörg Winterfeldt – Works at the sports desk of the German daily “Die Welt.”

Seda Serdar – Born in Turkey, Serdar got her degree in European Studies at the University of Amster-dam. She came to Germany seeking a Ph.D. in 2004. A year later, Serdar being CNN Turk’s Berlin corre-spondent, before moving to Frankfurt earlier this year, to head the EU desk for Turkey’s IHA News Agency.

Sander van Walsum – After studying history at the University of Utrecht, van Walsum began his journal-ism career for Rotterdam’s “NRC Handelsblad.” After that he worked for the “Elsevier” weekly and “de Volksgrant” daily. That is also the paper that brought him to Berlin as its correspondent in 2004.