Classroom lesson · Sport · 🇹🇷 Turkey

Football in Turkey

A country mad about the beautiful game

Turkish football fans cheering in a packed stadium

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Football (called futbol in Turkish) is the most popular sport in Turkey by far. Children play it in parks, in school yards, in the street, and even on roofs. The country has some of the loudest, most colourful football fans in the world - the singing in big games can be heard kilometres away from the stadium.

Tell me more

Turkey's three biggest clubs all come from Istanbul: Galatasaray (yellow and red), Fenerbahçe (yellow and navy blue) and Beşiktaş (black and white). Their stadiums sit in different parts of the same city, and matches between them are some of the most exciting games of the year.

Fenerbahçe's home ground sits right on the Asian side of Istanbul, and on a clear day you can see boats sailing along the Bosphorus from inside the stadium. Beşiktaş's stadium is so close to the sea that fans walk to it along the water.

Turkey's national team has had its biggest moments at the World Cup and the Euros. In 2002, the national side came third in the whole World Cup - a huge achievement.

But the real magic of Turkish football is not in the big stadiums. It is in every neighbourhood. Kids play with a tennis ball if they don't have a football, jumpers for goalposts, and the rule that the ball is 'out' only if it goes into someone's dinner. Football in Turkey isn't just a sport - it is a way of being together.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might a sport like football be so popular in nearly every country in the world?
  2. 02What is your favourite game to play with friends - and does it need much equipment?
  3. 03How does it feel when a whole stadium of people sings together?
Try this

Classroom activity

Design your own football club. Choose a city, a colour, a badge, and a one-line song the fans can sing. Draw the badge on paper. As a class, line them up on a wall and 'tour' each other's clubs.