{"id":136959,"date":"2026-06-30T17:11:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/deniz-undavs-world-cup-success-for-germany-lifts-yazidi-and-kurdish-pride\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T17:11:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T23:11:27","slug":"deniz-undavs-world-cup-success-for-germany-lifts-yazidi-and-kurdish-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/deniz-undavs-world-cup-success-for-germany-lifts-yazidi-and-kurdish-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"Deniz Undav\u2019s World Cup success for Germany lifts Yazidi and Kurdish pride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Germany\u2019s
Germany\u2019s Deniz Undav, left, and Antonio Ruediger reacts after scoring the sixth goal during the World Cup Group E soccer match between Germany and Curacao in Houston, Sunday, June 14, 2026. (Eric Gay\/Associated Press)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After entering as a substitute for Germany, Undav scored three goals and set up two more, putting him just behind top-scoring superstars such as Argentina\u2019s Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 of France and Vinicius Jr. of Brazil on the leaderboard.<\/p>\n

Undav, who identifies as a Kurdish Yazidi, is the son of Yazidi refugees. His success is being celebrated by a small, insular community that has endured decades of oppression and violence, notably a 2014 onslaught in which thousands of Yazidis in Iraq\u2019s Sinjar region were killed or abducted by militants from the Islamic State group who considered them to be heretics.<\/p>\n

Responding to a question at a news conference June 24, the German-born Undav said he hoped his performance would inspire fans everywhere, especially within the Yazidi community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always get the news from my parents how they view me, how they see me, and it\u2019s making me proud, you know, that we finally have somebody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Undav has fans across Syria, Germany and Iraq<\/div>\n

In the village of Khirbet al-Ghazal in northeastern Syria, a small group of Yazidis gathered June 25 to watch the Germany-Ecuador match at the home of community leader Ismail Dalaf. Many residents are related to Undav\u2019s mother, who is from a now-deserted nearby village whose residents left for economic reasons or fled during Syria\u2019s long civil war that began in 2011.<\/p>\n

Dalaf said Undav\u2019s World Cup performance has made him \u201ca symbol that shows Yazidis can reach a higher position and be seen with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people see a Yazidi entering the field, scoring goals and changing the result of matches, it changes public perception,\u201d he said. \u201cIt tells the world that Yazidis have a role in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with roughly 30 million living as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority mostly found in Syria, Iraq and Turkey. There are around 235,000 Yazidis living in Germany today, according to Irfan Ortac, chair of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany. Many arrived after the 2014 onslaught.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil now, we have mostly been known as victims of violence,\u201d Ortac said. \u201cWhenever we spoke about Yazidis, we always had to talk about genocide, discrimination and displacement. It makes us very proud and happy to be able to talk about something positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A small group of Yazidis gathers to watch the Germany-Ecuador match at the home of a community leader Ismail Dalaf in Khirbet al-Ghazal, northeastern Syria, on June 25, 2026. (Hogir Al Abdo\/Associated Press)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In Iraq \u2013 home to the largest concentration of Yazidis in the world and the location of their most holy site, the Lalish temple \u2013 members of the community also have embraced Undav\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me very happy to see a Yazidi bringing our name to the World Cup and playing in front of the whole world,\u201d said Luqman Sleiman, spokesperson for the temple.<\/p>\n

Diyar Bakir, 29, a Yazidi from Sinjar, hopes to travel to Germany one day to see Undav play.<\/p>\n

His family \u201ccame from a place where his ethnicity and religion were not appreciated, yet he is now recognized and valued by a great team like Germany,\u201d Bakir said. \u201cHe emerged from the womb of suffering, and we wish him every success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Undav has faced abuse for his heritage, but his popularity surges<\/div>\n

At times, Undav has faced abuse over his heritage from spectators and on social media.<\/p>\n

When his club team Stuttgart played in Turkey at Fenerbahce last year, German media reported the outbreak of obscene chants about his mother. Two Kurdish anti-discrimination groups said social media insults were part of a growing campaign of \u201cracist and ethnically motivated hostility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Undav\u2019s decision to represent Germany and not Turkey, as other eligible German-born players have done in the past, also resulted in some online hostility from Turkish fans. But now, his popularity is surging.<\/p>\n

D\u00fczen Tekkal, a German documentary filmmaker and author of Kurdish Yazidi heritage, is from northwestern Germany, like Undav. She is the co-founder of Scoring Girls*, a nonprofit offering free soccer classes for girls from diverse backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere definitely is a Deniz Undav effect and it\u2019s very important,\u201d she said, referencing children who can celebrate their heritage and feel they belong in Germany at a time when migration is often treated as a political problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is no coincidence that he plays with this lightness and freedom,\u201d Tekkal said. \u201cPeople are asking how come he\u2019s so good under pressure or he can cope with so much pressure? Because he doesn\u2019t know it any other way. That is the DNA, that is the resilience. \u2026 That\u2019s how he scores these goals because what is that pressure compared to being Kurdish or Yazidi?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Undav scored one of those goals, against Curacao, he broke into a Yazidi-inspired jig with his hands clasped behind his back. He was joined by Antonio R\u00fcdiger, a Black German soccer star who has faced racist and anti-Muslim abuse during his career, in what Tekkal called \u201cone of the highlights, no matter how this World Cup goes from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDancing is a form of expressing resistance for us,\u201d Tekkal said. \u201cWe dance on the graves of our dead. Our mantra is that resistance is life. He\u2019s dancing there for his forefathers who were oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmoud Kanabi, a Kurd from Irbil, moved to Berlin in 2020 and works in a Kurdish restaurant. Because of Undav, he purchased\u202fa Germany jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, for us Kurds, we don\u2019t have a team because we don\u2019t have a country,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, when a Kurdish player is in a team, we have to be fans of it. It doesn\u2019t matter what team it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany\u2019s Deniz Undav, left, and Antonio Ruediger reacts after scoring the sixth goal during the World Cup Group E soccer match between Germany and Curacao in Houston, Sunday, June 14, 2026. (Eric Gay\/Associated Press) After entering as a substitute for Germany, Undav scored three goals and set up two more, putting him just behind top-scoring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6430],"tags":[407,4561],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-136959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","tag-religion-and-belief","tag-world-cup"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136959"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=136959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}