Hakan Calhanoglu back on home turf at Euro 2024 looking to guide Turkey into last-16

As he nears the centre spot before kick off at Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion on Wednesday, Turkish pennant in his hand, palm extended to his rival captain and the referee, Hakan Calhanoglu might just pause for a moment to remember a moment of inspiration.

Just outside this very centre circle, Turkey’s captain scored a breathtaking goal they still talk about in Hamburg. He struck it from more than 40 metres from the target, and its flight path was so full of unexpected swerves and sudden dips it seemed to defy the laws of physics.

Calhangolu’s wonder strike, in a late-season Bundesliga fixture for Hamburg against Borussia Dortmund, announced his special skill with a dead ball to a wider world. In the decade since, Calhanoglu has become acknowledged as one of the game’s great virtuosos with free kicks and corners, and a masterly passer over ambitious distances, assets that have taken him a long way from Hamburg, where, as a 20-year-old he was often helping stave off relegation.

After he left – a fractious departure – the club struggled on through various battles against the drop but the arena Calhangolu revisits today, leading a Turkey anxious about their progress to the knockout stage of Euro 2024, has long become used to hosting club games in Germany’s second tier.

For Turkey-Czech Republic, a rousing atmosphere at the Volksparkstadion is guaranteed. Hamburg is home to the fourth highest urban concentration of Germans of Turkish heritage and, in a country where the community numbers an estimated seven million, support for the Crescent-Stars at the championship so far has been conspicuous.

Seldom has that community had such prominence at the top of the sport in both Turkey and Germany.

Calhanoglu, fresh from winning last