Fans brawl in the rain as Turkey serve up a feast

You’d be forgiven for having earmarked Turkey vs Georgia as the most low-key fixture of the Euro 2024 group stage. After all, the combined ranking of the teams was the most modest at the tournament so far, and Georgia entered Group F with no European Championship experience to their name.

- ALEX PATTLE

This game, though? It turned into something far beyond a football match.

Perhaps that should have been evident in the hours before kickoff. Biblical rain and severe weather warnings led German authorities to encourage fans without tickets to stay inside, and to watch the match at home if possible. The elements were deemed a threat to the safety of supporters, before their safety was even threatened by fan violence inside the BVB Stadium in Dortmund.

But when that violence began, as water spilt through the roof of the arena and fans spilt from their seats to attack one another, questions arose. Would the game go ahead, and if it were to, would it even resemble a football match?

Such is the way that Borussia Dortmund’s stadium contains and augments sound, there is something almost oppressive and overwhelming about it – intimidating, even, on this occasion. The arena, however, was struggling to contain anything beyond the noise. Not the water, not the pugilistic urges of a segment of supporters.

To say the tension could be cut with a knife would be to give unnecessary credit to knives. You could have lacerated the tension with a balloon. It felt as though everything could come crashing down at any moment, courtesy of the slightest move or even thought. It felt as if a foul on the pitch could incite a riot, such was the air of hostility, yet thankfully the violence in the stands did seem to have subsided by kick-off.