Erdogan praises Turkish team after Euro exit, Montella lauds fans

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has praised the national team as "our champions" after a narrow 2-1 defeat against the Netherlands in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals.

Erdogan visited the team post-match late Saturday in the dressing room in Berlin's Olympic Stadium. He had flown in for the match together with his wife, Emine.

"I congratulate all of you. You are our champions regardless of today's result," Turkish media quoted Erdogan as telling the players.

Erdogan said the team has potential and "we will continue this work in the future."

The president shook hands with all players, including defender Merih Demiral, who missed the match due to a two-game suspension imposed by the ruling body UEFA for making the controversial wolf salute after scoring in the last 16 match against Austria.

Erdogan said earlier in the week that Demiral had only shown his "enthusiasm" with the gesture.

Turkish team manager Hamit Altintop told Magenta TV that the wolf salute affair was not the reason why Erdogan had come.

"It was already agreed beforehand that our head of state wanted to come to this match. That has nothing to do with the incident or UEFA's decision," Altintop said.

The wolf salute is attributed, among other things, to a far-right extremist movement. The movement known as “Ülkücü” or “grey wolves” are linked to political allies of Erdogan, the ultra-nationalist MHP in Turkey.

Turkey coach Vincenzo Montella did not comment on the gesture after the match and rather praised the Turkish fans for creating a home atmosphere.

"It's very hard and complicated to talk about football after a match, so I don't have the strength to talk about anything else," Montella told reporters.

Some 200,000 people with Turkish roots live in Berlin and Turkish fans were the majority at the Olympic stadium, where Turkey led from Samet Akaydin but the Dutch rallied from Stefan De Vrij and an own goal from Mert Müldür.

"The atmosphere is always like home. They supported us until the end, but this pride, this passion towards the team has been seen from day one, not only during matches," Montella said.

"What makes me really proud is seeing that even after the defeat the people showed love for what we showed during the tournament. That gives me a lot of joy. We need to keep fuelling this passion with our performance. Then you can either win or lose.

"We need to keep growing, keep improving, because the future is on our side," he side.