Rivalries!
Soccer is great because of rivalries between continents, countries, cities, religions, sects, ethnicities, politics, social classes, pretty much whatever you can beef about in real life it can spill over into real life. And it's not fake made-up North American rivalries perpetrated by the PR reps trying to sell tickets to the ignorant businessman type season ticket holders who couldn't name five players on the home team never mind their heated rivals, (not you though Dad you're great :) .) These rivalries start at the fan level and stay there for the most part. And there's always some great history behind it, because most of these rivalries are as old as the clubs themselves, (which is old, like turn of the century old.)
[ Sidebar random question, as the 21st century has turned, at which point do I have to stop saying turn of the century before it gets ambiguous? Or would that be turn of the millennium. I just my start referring to the last twenty years as the turn of the millennium. You heard it hear first.]
Most rivalries end up boiling down to geography. You beef with the club from the same neighbourhood, city, province, country, what-have-you. Most of these are called Derbies, at least in English. And then from that same geographic proximity the beef goes geo-political. Clubs having gravitated to one side or another of some divisive issue. (I say having because usually clubs gravitate back towards neutrality in our politically correct society, but the fans don't forget.
(gee this could be a long post... well off I go)
My first companion on the mission had a poster with all the teams from the Italian soccer league that showed all their jerseys. He told me that I had to pick a team, cause every street kid would ask me who my team was, (and did they ever.) So I looked at the teams, he mentioned who the top five or so were, I made the completely masculine choice of choosing S.S. Lazio basically because I liked their sky-blue jerseys. People who know me may have seen me wearing a few of them since then. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan and follow the team pretty religiously now but back then I new next to nothing about Italian soccer and based my decision solely
on aesthetics. Took me a while and a few football conversations to learn even where the were based out of. The answer, Rome, Lazio being the name of the principality Rome is located in. Their big rivals are Roma, in fact the share the Stadio Olimpico with them. They call it the Derby della Capitale. Without getting in to it too much, the call it more than just a game, (but they say that about all the big derbys I guess.) But still, lots of violence, lots of obscenities being shouted. Lots of very sturdy metal fences set up to keep the fans from going at each other. Their rivalry stems from Lazio being the one roman club to resist Mussolini's forced unification of other roman clubs to form Roma to compete with the powerful northern Italian clubs in Milano and Torino. But, ironically enough, Roma started to gather it's fan base from the more left-leaning political types, with Lazio getting the more right leaning. Right leaning in the forties means, well, Facism. Lazio, I would later find out has a pretty fascist(and with that comes racist) history. And the Ultras (the crazy hardcore fans) like to hype this up even now with Nazi salutes and facist propaganda crap. Romas Ultras pull similar stunts but tend to be less racially motivated. Most notably at a derby during the 98-99 season, when Laziali(Lazio fans) unfurled a 50-metre banner around the Curva Nord that read, "Auschwitz is your town, the ovens are your houses"Of course In N. America this would be crazy headline making stuff but not in European football. Of course the clubs officially distance themselves from this mess but don't do a lot to stop it. I mean id I can't sneak a hot dog into the ACC how do you get a 50 foot banner into the stadium.
(Sidebar note, for some reason we as North Americans think we've cornered the market on racism, and that Europe is so much more civilized. It's not ok?)
Couple other examples. Okay maybe more...
The famous Old Firm derby, between the Glasgow giants of Scottish football, originated, humbly, by a catholic priest looking to get some Irish immigrant children, that the Protestant clubs wouldn't have, to play some football. This set the stage for 100 years of sectarian strife both at home and across the Irish channel, being played out on a pitch in Glasgow. For years they both had strict hiring policies along religious lines, but have since opened up their ranks to players of all creeds to stay competitive. But that doesn't stop the Rangers fans from singing about killing Finians, and other such equally offensive chants from both sides.
AC Milan and Inter Milan's historic rivalry came after the the two clubs founders split over whether of not to allow foreigners to play which Internazionale was in favour of but A.C. was not. Inter also became the more bourgeois choice amongst the Milanese with A.C. drawing more blue collar support.
Real Madrid and Barcelona, by the far the most successful of the two Spanish clubs, have El Classico, which boils down to Catalonian nationalism mixed with leftover Francoist era politics. Way to much to go into.
My Arsenal gunners beef with Chelsea, and Man United, but their big derby is with their fellow north Londeners Tottenham Hotspurs, which has it's roots in geography and a bunch of silly squables over the years, but that doesn't stop their fans from wanting to bash each others heads in.
But anyways here's the story I wanted to get into.
So as I've explained before, and as everybody's no doubt promptly forgotten, every country has both a league format and a single elimination cup tournament that run concurrently during the season. In order to entice teams to take their cup competition more seriously, UEFA, the European football governing body, decided that cup winners would get beneficial placement in the Europa league, Europe's secondary competition, the next year. Well a team called Besa Kavaje, from the little city of, Kavaja, lol, managed to win the cup competition, i.e. the Albanian Cup. Great for them! A little Cinderella story for Albanian football. The problem is though is that when small teams manage to bring up some good talent they never stick around. Teams sell them, make some money, and players get to show their talents on a bigger stage. Well Besa sold a whack of their players, limiting their ability to field a strong team. Not a big deal, all small teams do it cause that money can by a dozen young players that they can bring up, maybe improve their training facility, upgrade the stadium, whatever. But, they still gotta play in Europe the next season with their now diminished squad. The opponents they draw? Olympiacos, the most successful club in Greece football, who after having played against Arsenal in the highest echelon of European football last year is slumming it this year in the second qualifying round of the Europa league after a bad domestic form. Now I went to the home match of a two legged heads up match between the two clubs that was held in the national stadium here in Tirana, which is about an hours drive from Kavaja, because, well, their stadium sucks and doesn't meet UEFA's standards for competition. What was interesting was that the crowd was, I wanna say, at least four times larger than the qualifier that KF Tirana, the local big Tirana club, had had the week before. Why? Because the Greeks are coming. And there's no one Albanians hate more than the Greeks.
My first soccer experience here was a friendly match between Albania and Andorra, one of Europe's resident fake mini-countries. I think I'll go into that game more later. But anyways, the crazy Albanian fans still showed up to show their support to beat a country with the population of Red Deer. So I got there early, and they were doing their parade thing down the road they were chanting Hellas Hellas ,(Greece, Greece in Greek,) F$%! You, F$%! You!, English kinda being the Lingua Franca of swear words. Funny thing though, there were no Greeks there. At all. But they had no beef with those pleasant Andorrans so lets chant about those with whom we do gots beef lol.
There are two great moments of Albanian soccer. One was when they beat the Russians 3-1 in a Euro qualifier. The other was when they beat the Greeks 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier, basically derailing their attempt to qualify, right after they had just won the European Cup. Now I guess I won't get too much into history of conflict between Greece and Albania, but there's some long standing border disputes. The Greeks pretty much tried to absorb Albania when they declared independence from the Turks. Now a days Albanian diaspora in Greece are blamed (probably rightly so in some cases) for bringing crime and disorder, and stealing jobs form the natives.
It's all a rich history but there's some problems there.
So the stadium is pretty packed. Some travelling supporters from Athens have showed up, and the shouting begins. A lot of talking about your mother, your sister, pretty much all your familial relations. In English, and Albanian, which I though was hilarious. Hey Spanish referee! I know you can't understand a single word I'm saying or even tell I'm directing my comments to you or but Yo Mamma! Yah! Take that! You're gonna think twice about giving that foul next time aren't you!
So there was a lot of obscenities being hurled back and forth. All the while Olympiacos is just giving it to poor Besa. 5 - 0. They just creamed them. And the more they scored the more the Albanians shouted and cursed. And I think that's what I liked most about it. This was an outlet for mostly working class poor to come, shout themselves hoarse, and release a little pent up
aggression. You don't see that as much in North American sports as most teams have priced out fans, and lulled us all into complacency with there PA announcer telling us what and when to yell. The last game Raptors game I was at the guy behind me got mad at me for standing up. There's large parts of soccer stadiums that never sit down. I really think we've lost something in our homogenized corporate sports world in N. America that can still be found here for a 5 dollar ticket.
Well I've still got 3 or 4 stories I wanna tell but this is day two of this post and I'm sick or writing and this is turning into a 12 paragraph run on sentence.
i'm out
So as I've explained before, and as everybody's no doubt promptly forgotten, every country has both a league format and a single elimination cup tournament that run concurrently during the season. In order to entice teams to take their cup competition more seriously, UEFA, the European football governing body, decided that cup winners would get beneficial placement in the Europa league, Europe's secondary competition, the next year. Well a team called Besa Kavaje, from the little city of, Kavaja, lol, managed to win the cup competition, i.e. the Albanian Cup. Great for them! A little Cinderella story for Albanian football. The problem is though is that when small teams manage to bring up some good talent they never stick around. Teams sell them, make some money, and players get to show their talents on a bigger stage. Well Besa sold a whack of their players, limiting their ability to field a strong team. Not a big deal, all small teams do it cause that money can by a dozen young players that they can bring up, maybe improve their training facility, upgrade the stadium, whatever. But, they still gotta play in Europe the next season with their now diminished squad. The opponents they draw? Olympiacos, the most successful club in Greece football, who after having played against Arsenal in the highest echelon of European football last year is slumming it this year in the second qualifying round of the Europa league after a bad domestic form. Now I went to the home match of a two legged heads up match between the two clubs that was held in the national stadium here in Tirana, which is about an hours drive from Kavaja, because, well, their stadium sucks and doesn't meet UEFA's standards for competition. What was interesting was that the crowd was, I wanna say, at least four times larger than the qualifier that KF Tirana, the local big Tirana club, had had the week before. Why? Because the Greeks are coming. And there's no one Albanians hate more than the Greeks.
My first soccer experience here was a friendly match between Albania and Andorra, one of Europe's resident fake mini-countries. I think I'll go into that game more later. But anyways, the crazy Albanian fans still showed up to show their support to beat a country with the population of Red Deer. So I got there early, and they were doing their parade thing down the road they were chanting Hellas Hellas ,(Greece, Greece in Greek,) F$%! You, F$%! You!, English kinda being the Lingua Franca of swear words. Funny thing though, there were no Greeks there. At all. But they had no beef with those pleasant Andorrans so lets chant about those with whom we do gots beef lol.
There are two great moments of Albanian soccer. One was when they beat the Russians 3-1 in a Euro qualifier. The other was when they beat the Greeks 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier, basically derailing their attempt to qualify, right after they had just won the European Cup. Now I guess I won't get too much into history of conflict between Greece and Albania, but there's some long standing border disputes. The Greeks pretty much tried to absorb Albania when they declared independence from the Turks. Now a days Albanian diaspora in Greece are blamed (probably rightly so in some cases) for bringing crime and disorder, and stealing jobs form the natives.
It's all a rich history but there's some problems there.
So the stadium is pretty packed. Some travelling supporters from Athens have showed up, and the shouting begins. A lot of talking about your mother, your sister, pretty much all your familial relations. In English, and Albanian, which I though was hilarious. Hey Spanish referee! I know you can't understand a single word I'm saying or even tell I'm directing my comments to you or but Yo Mamma! Yah! Take that! You're gonna think twice about giving that foul next time aren't you!
So there was a lot of obscenities being hurled back and forth. All the while Olympiacos is just giving it to poor Besa. 5 - 0. They just creamed them. And the more they scored the more the Albanians shouted and cursed. And I think that's what I liked most about it. This was an outlet for mostly working class poor to come, shout themselves hoarse, and release a little pent up
aggression. You don't see that as much in North American sports as most teams have priced out fans, and lulled us all into complacency with there PA announcer telling us what and when to yell. The last game Raptors game I was at the guy behind me got mad at me for standing up. There's large parts of soccer stadiums that never sit down. I really think we've lost something in our homogenized corporate sports world in N. America that can still be found here for a 5 dollar ticket.Well I've still got 3 or 4 stories I wanna tell but this is day two of this post and I'm sick or writing and this is turning into a 12 paragraph run on sentence.
i'm out
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