By far the most popular sport in Turkey is soccer, or as they call it futbol (football). This snapshot was taken on Istiklal Caddesi during the match of Turkey’s two biggest teams, both coming from Istanbul: Fenerbahçe versus Galatassaray. It’s one of the top 10 derby’s in Europe and one of the most exciting games for futbol fans across Turkey and especially in Istanbul. People in shops were following the match on the radio, waiters watching on televisions (as you can see in the above pic) or if they don’t have a TV in their restaurant you can see the waiters running around the corner whenever they can to look at a TV through the window of a nearby shop or restaurant.
How popular is soccer/futbol/football in your country? What do you call it? What other sports are very popular in your country?
I’m off to Bulgaria for a few days but posting will continue. You can stay up to date by following my Twitter feed, or subscribe to this blog by RSS or email.
Comments
6 responses to “Hypnotized by Futbol”
Well, of course, it’s not very popular here in the states, however, when you go into any pocket of immigrants they’ll be watching. I remember stopping in a small town in North Carolina, just in the foothills. We went into a local diner and there were several Indian gentlemen watching the World Cup.
A game was always on at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and when we took an African friend in after his house burned down, he was always watching (his favorite team was one of the British teams)
Next to badminton, my country’s also football crazy 🙂 But I am not a football fan though.
enjoy your trip to bulgary, talk to you when you’re back…and soccer, only when ajax plays the final of the cl..))
Hans´s last blog post:
Good result for Turkey 2 – 4 in Austria and sitting second in their group. It’s gone all quiet on the football front in Bulgaria – who are just as passionate about ther game. I think it has something to do with losing 1 – 6 in Serbia yesterday. There’s always the next game though! That’s football!
ah… my bug’s life has just said it. Badminton is our national sport, but like all of europe and elsewhere except North America, soccer is seen everywhere. Due to our country as a former british colony, the english premier league is by far the most popular of all soccer leagues. Football is known as bola sepak in the Malay language, which literally means ‘ball kick”.
kyh´s last blog post:
you have some nice posts in your blog, dude!
by the way, it’s Galatasaray, with one S only 🙂