The Euro 2008 football finals begin on Saturday, bereft of British teams. what's a fan to do? Times writers pick their teams and explain why?
TURKEY
What makes the marvellous is its peculiar way of being ordinary; what makes the ordinary is its peculiar way of being marvellous. That's as true of sport as it is about love and wildlife and food and drink and anything else worth having or doing. And it's why Turkey is the only side to support at the European Championship.
I shall be cheering for Turkey because I once read The Black Book in Istanbul and was nothing less than ravished by it. It is no more capricious a reason for supporting a nation than the mere chance of having been born there: perhaps, in the end, a much sounder one. The book's author, Orhan Pamuk, went on to win the Nobel prize, after years of lobbying from me in various bars. So perhaps Turkey will win Euro 2008.
I was in Istanbul to see England play Turkey, and the strange, sinister, wild quality of the book infected me in the same way as the ditto streets of the ditto city. The book had elements of Marquez, elements of Borges, yet was wholly itself: a demented detective novel turned into an insane quest for - well, everything, really, life, love, sanity, understanding, meaning, all that sort of thing.
I assumed that the mysterious disappearances that are one of the book's recurring themes were a magical-realistic convention: but no. Suna Erdem, at the time writing for this newspaper in Istanbul, assured me that mysterious disappearances are a fact of life in this city. It's a deeply rum place. Not like home, not a bit.
What are Turkey doing in a European competition? It doesn't feel like a European country. There is a wildness, a culture, a mystery beyond European understanding, save through the words of a universal author. But the football team, wild, intense, individual, given to poisonous rows, have the potential to do well. Follow these boys for a wild ride, and read The Black Book while you're doing it.
Simon Barnes
Thanks sir
