A Note on Comments, and Introduce Yourselves
At Pitch Invasion, I’m fortunate to have people commenting on the posts who are smarter and more knowledgeable about the global game than me. Even if I forget to show it, I love getting thoughtful, critical comments; the beauty of blogging (says someone who has spent two years working on a dissertation no-one outside of my committee of three will ever read) lies in the instant feedback.
And fortunately, due to the fact I finally installed some decent spam filters on this blog, feedback will now be instantaneous for everyone when you submit it (unless, that is, you include lots of bad words or phrases such as ‘viagra’, ‘credit card no limit’ or ‘New England Revolution rule’).
No longer will there be a moderation limbo for first time commenters, which I hope will facilitate discussion. Which reminds me: if you read this site regularly, why not drop a comment right here and tell us who you are, where you’re from and who you support? The site would be nothing without you readers, after all.
About the Author
Thomas Dunmore
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i’m from oregon, living and going to school in washington, dc. in order of vehemence, i support…
portland timbers
portland timbers
portland timbers
dc united
unam pumas
tottenham
i also have huge respect for st pauli and panathinaikos fans for their tifo, but i don’t really follow the teams.
My naive comments are written in Chicagoland, north of the city. I took some time off of school due to a moronic injury I picked up during a game of five-a-side, but when I’m not lying around doing nothing, I study in Minnesota. I spent a year in Nottingham at the university (not Trent) and survived. My teams are:
Fire
US
I don’t like to support teams that I don’t have a real connection to (i.e. I actively work to avoid being an armchair fan). I do pay attention to Arsenal, Man U, and UANL Tigres, but I don’t really care one way or another if they lose.
I’m also from Oregon and have passionately followed “futbol” since about 1977. Hell, back then the only thing “futbol” was a German highlight show on Saturday mornings; it was lodged between kids shows and not very well produced. I visit your site multiple times a day.
Teams: (Reasons supplied if anyone’s interested)
1) Real Betis
2) West Ham United
3) Racing Club
4) (Big Club) I shouldn’t apologize, but I will. I’ve liked Arsenal (name and colors) since youth. As I’ve grown older I’ve realized that a support of Arsenal “isn’t me,” but I secretly still follow them.
Used to play Subbuteo…now I’m too old. I’ve never been to a Timbers game.
Memorable Futbol Moment: Went to the Argentina 0 Colombia 5 game in 1993. God, what a ass-kicking THAT was!
from oregon and not a timbers fan? for shame! banished to california!
I’m from Oregon, left from around 1988, periodically visited, and returned in 2006. The Timbers? Sure, nice story, I watched them play their semi-final vs. Atlanta on TV. But the “follow” the Timbers? No, not like I follow Betis…who’re bad to be sure, but who’d wipe the floor with the Portland Timbers. I’ll probably take my four year-old next year to a game. Is that okay?
I’m living in Chicago, I rarely comment but I read all your posts. I think we met once at Mark’s place during the WYC.
ps. I’m a Liverpool fan, but I also watch Valencia quite closely. I haven’t been to any Fire games, mostly because I have no time/money, but that shouldn’t have to be an excuse.
I mainly support Sunderland and St. Pauli. NE Revs in the MLS. From upstate NY. Watched Blackburn-Liverpool and it was awesome!
I’m from NJ, and I support:
NY Red Bulls (and the Metrostars before that…season ticket holder)
USMNT (obvious reasons)
Manchester United (got into watching soccer because of working with some big United fans, so that was the first team I regularly followed).
I’m from Portland Oregon, as well…and support the Pride of the Northwest, the Portland Timbers. I’m not sure why it matters that Real Betis would beat the Timbers, but you should really come down and see a game; you won’t regret it. Great site, TD…I read it regularly and really enjoy the content and different points of view.
You Cannot Stop Us!
We are the Rose City!
I doesn’t matter at all. The comment was 1) tongue-in-cheek–which is, I admit, sometimes hard to notice in blog writing–and 2) a reference to point that I La Liga (to me at least) just doesn’t compare re: USL. However, I will say that I’ve found the “feeling” of the fans just through watching a few games on tv. I’ll very likely hit a game next season. (I just moved back to Portland and didn’t really know/find out about their schedule until too late.)
I’m from Pittsburgh and go to school in Erie, PA. Love the site and try to be slightly active commentwise when I can but I’m relatively young in my soccer following career. I like a lot of teams but I suppose I only “support” these ones I suppose.
Chicago Fire
Pittsburgh Riverhounds
USMNT
Poland
I like Celtic and Tottenham too but I keep my focus on the Fire. Unfortunately have only been to one game so far and that was up in Toronto but when I graduate and get some disposable income I plan on making vacations out of it.
From the UK and studying Business at university. I read this as well as the Culture of Soccer and Global Game blogs.
I don’t have a great interest in MLS per se, even with Beckham (actually, I’m a huge JPA fan..), but I love what Toronto have done off the field in their inaugral season.
A Gillingham FC fan living in Kent, a reader of this blog, two-hundred-percent, who ate all the pies and many others!
Am a massive global football fan. MLS wise, I have a Washington DC jersey from a trip made by my Dad. Whenever we go away we always try and get a football jersey from where we are!
A Torquay United fan living in Oxford in the UK; I suspect I found this site via twohundredpercent, but glad I did. I’m in the US for work a few times a year and it’s nice to have some MLS background.
Dave from Durham, NC, here. I’m actually a relatively new fan to Association football, having finally gotten some knowledge during the 2006 World Cup.
I jumped on Reading’s bandwagon last season, since it was their first year ever in the Premier League, too, but I find myself rooting for American players in Europe more than clubs — especially Clint Dempsey at Fulham and DaMarcus Beasley at Rangers. Beasley and the man they call Nacho Novo are doing more to make me a Rangers fan than anyone. I’ll probably cheer for Jozy Altidore, too, as long as he doesn’t end up at Man U.
Locally, I’m a supporter of the Carolina Railhawks of USL. I’d like to care about MLS, but I think it’ll be a few more years before that happens. I want to see MLS become a 16-team single table league first. At least then, the 8-team MLS Cup playoffs might mean something.
Thierry form Chicago
My teams (in no particular order)
Fire
US
France
Arsenal
Intrigued by Roma, but not a fan of Serie A
By buddy Joe sent me a link to your blog and I’ve been reading since. Keep up the great work!!
I live in south jersey and go to school in northeastern pa. I try my best to follow MLS, once Philly has a team I will support them. I support the USMNT.
From Philly but in grad school in DC. I used to live in Argentina for 18 months, which was where I got really into soccer, so that severely colors the teams I root for. I end up rooting for specific players over teams.
Boca Juniors
Argentina seleccion
Riquelme
Tevez (I lived in Buenos Aires when he was dominating for Boca)
Messi
Roma for some random reason
Villareal from the Riquelme days but I find myself still rooting for them
Tom knows this already, but in the unlikely event that others may be interested. . .
New York born and bred, older than all of you (not only do I recall Soccer Made in Germany fondly, but my English allegiance dates back to a Wide World of Sports broadcast of the 1967 FA Cup Final with a several week delay), now living and working in Milan, having lived in a number of other European cities in the (rather lengthy) interim.
The clubs that I support tend to share a tradition of playing “pretty football” , not being local and underachieving. The last two bits may well relate to the fact that my oldest and deepest sporting allegiance is to the Chicago Cubs.
Barcelona (I’m a socio)
Tottenham Hotspur (see above)
Fiorentina (since the Antognoni years)
Auxerre (pre-Cantona)
Vancouver Whitecaps (since the NASL)
UNAM (from the early days of Spanish language television in the US and before Hugo Sanchez running off to the forces of darkness in Madrid).
Holland (since ‘74 and closed circuit broadcasts in the Felt Forum under Madison Square Garden)
It is interesting to see that virtually everyone who has posted so far notes multiple allegiances. I think that comes fairly naturally to North Americans, but is seen with a jaundiced eye by many traditional British supporters, who believe that one can only “support” a single club. That attitude is rather less prevalent on the continent, where even within a country it isn’t unusual for an individual to “support” both a local team and one of the “big clubs” from the country in question. As a dyed in the wool Interista (we have season tickets), my son combines the two in one.
I’m from Japan.
I am glad to see that my photo is posted in this blog, thank you again.
I support Sapporo, you know.
I’m from the UK and have been a fairly regular reader since some of my photographs were used here.
I support the team I was born with; Derby County (the current Premier League whipping boys…..). I also have an interest in football in Eastern Europe in particular the associated Ultras and graffiti culture that is to be found there.
Good site, some interesting articles here, keep up the good work.
Sasakei, I should be the one thanking you for the photo. Your work on Flickr is outstanding.
ursus, that’s an interesting point and it’s certainly far more common to sport multiple allegiances in the US. Of course, the “traditional supporter” or WSC-reader is an ever decreasing minority in Britain too.
Indeed, though I think that the degree of “team swapping” noted in Robinson’s Observer article over the weekend overstates the trend to a more relaxed definition of “support”. As much as I dislike the “I’m a real fan, you ain’t” debate in general, I just can’t see someone who would change their favouite Premier League five times as a supporter; they are a consumer who likely has a weaker allegiance to their football club than to their brand of toothpaste.
The concept of allegiance to a smaller club and a “simpatizzante” relationship with one of the “Bigs” is very well established in Italian society, but we still have the saying that “you can always change your wife, but you can never change your club”.
Nice Ursus. Thanks for reminding me of Soccer Made In Germany title. Man, I used to feed off of that show and go into the back yard and kick my crappy little ball around.
I agree on the support thing to a point, but that agreement is only my perception and from my experience. Maybe in England people pick a side, but in my experiences abroad people tend to have a team followed by a number of “teams” in other countries or “big clubs” in their very country. As just one example, I know a host of Spaniards who follow Team X, but will add if pressed that they also “like” Barcelona or Valencia or Inter or pick-your-”big”-side…usually not Franco’s team though.
I’ve also found it interesting that people abroad tend to respect the obscure when it comes to fan support. (And no, that didn’t bring about my fan support, life experience and Subbuteo did.) It’s probably no surprise, but sitting at a bar in Madrid and talking futbol is usually a shock enough to the sterotype that Americans don’t “know” the game. Adding that you support a side like Betis (or other mid-sized ones, like, say, Celta, Sociedad, etc) and why brings about much more intrigue and debate than the general, “I just love Real Madrid” talk.
Ironically, I feel–now I wrote “feel,” I don’t have evidence of this–that Americans (in general) are actually more open to the game than most Europeans or South Americans (my experiences) in the sense that they are not colored (usually) by blinding support of their US teams or of their chosen sides abroad. Americans (in general and in my opinion) follow leagues AND clubs and will likely know players and styles of, say of a Fulham or a Bolton and others up through the table, whereas my English friends will be Liverpool fans and tune-out and disrespect all others (minus their big rivals). Spain? Same thing. Real Madrid fans know all things Real Madrid, but don’t know shit about (or respect for that matter) a Zaragoza or a Racing Santander. I think that the “American” fan experience aids this: I’m a baseball fan (i.e. MLB) AND I like the Mets; I’m an football fan (i.e. NFL) AND I like the Raiders; I’m a college football fan AND I like the Oregon Ducks; I’m a soccer-crazed-nut AND I like the Premiership (and West Ham) and La Liga (and Real Betis)…that’s…what the hell I’m talking about folks.
And, the soccer asshole in me just has to ask if everyone who ever goes to Argentina these days just HAS to be a Boca Juniors fan? I mean one really doesn’t have to buy into the notion (an incorrect one factually if I may add) of “la mitad mas uno” that Boca fans claim as one of their mantras. Yeah…I fucking hate (and that’s a soccer and a viceral hated all in one) Boca, River, and all things Real Madrid and Sevilla. Oh, those were the days when Boca sucked ass! (I do love the drama and the player that is Riquelme to be sure.)
Hey Tom, now can we have a hatred diary?
I’ll bet that we can have lists there too.
Great, great site!
Funny you mention the Mets in an (excellent) post that also touches on hatred. I hate the Mets more than I hate Real Madrid (and I hate Real Madrid a great deal). At least we agree that Toby Charles (the guy who did the voiceover for Soccer Made in Germany) was a hero.
I think that the context of the North American fan experience from the early 1960s on was fundamentally different from that in Europe, and that it explains a good bit of the difference you’ve noticed (which I wouldn’t say is universal, but definitely exists).
North Americans of my generation grew up with televised sports as their primary point of contact, and perhaps more importantly, with televised sports that focused on a league as a whole rather than a particular team. The “Game of the Week” format that baseball pioneered was copied by all of the other major sports in the US, while being contemporaneously perfected by Hockey Night in Canada. Many teams didn’t have local television contracts at all, and those that did generally did not broadcast many games; the NFL didn’t allow local contracts at all and blacked out home games that didn’t sell out. If you liked the sport and couldn’t get to a game, you watched whatever game was being broadcast on a particular weekend, whether you really “cared” about the teams who were playing or not. The existence of some form of “playoffs” in every North American sport from the beginning of the 20th c. amplified that trend. “Your” team might well not be still be “in contention”, but you watched.
Compare this to the European experience before the 90s, when the general rule was that what you got were edited highlights of a “feature” match and goals from a number of others, often several hours after the games were over (or even the next day). “Big” teams featured more often, and the national sporting press in every Continental European country (something that never took off in North America) focused on the big teams. Even today, la Gazzetta dello Sport devotes at least two full pages to each of Inter, Juve and Milan 365 days a year; Marca “wastes” significantly more than that on the Merengues alone every day (just as El Mundo Deportivo and Sport do with Barca). Virtually no matches were televised live. At the same time, you had more people actually going to matches, because there were more teams in smaller countries. To an American, the idea that England could support 92 professional football clubs (counting Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham and Newport County (but not Berwick Rovers) as English for these purposes) was an amazing discovery. The identification with the local team was greater, in the North American context more like the identification with a college or high school team, or a Canadian junior hockey team. No playoffs, just a Cup competition or two (a very minor event in Italy, btw). The context was completely different, and I think that is reflected in the pattern of support that developed.
As Tom and I were hinting at above, an interesting question is whether European (and particuarly British) patterns of support will become more like those in North America, now that what the French call the “audio visual landscape” has changed to be more like the one we grew up with. It is happening to a notable extent, but I don’t see it going quite all the way because that landscape is actually different. If you really are obsessed with Liverpool, or Barca, or Inter, or Bayern Munich, you really don’t need to pay attention to anyone else. You now can watch every match on pay per view and even subscribe to one of those dedicated channels for obsessive compulsives that broadcast training live (we have such channels nationally for Inter, Juve, Milan and Roma, all of which broadcast 24/7, and local ones for “smaller” clubs that aren’t quite as obsessive).
But I’ve run on a bit.
As a Mets fan, I also hate them! Seriously, I hate them…and their we-boo-Beltran-because-he-doesn’t-hit-a-home-run-every-single-AB fans. I love them too! Come on, hate them more than Franco’s team? Really?
Great stuff there Ursus. My friend’s dad used to buy Gazzetta dello Sport at a local cigar shop–he was from Sicily–back in the early 80s and I’d pour over it not knowing a lick of Italian.
To be honest, the only team that makes my weekend when they win (rarely these days) and pisses me off to no end when the lose (or tie as they do regularly now) is Betis. Betis, and their idiot devil of an owner. If you didn’t notice, I follow teams for a number or reasons, but the teams that have chosen me happen to be ones that’ll break your heart…the story of my life. No, not really, but I appreciate the struggle that is a futbol season and the up-and-down nature of the middling clubs.
So, least favorite teams next?
OT: Ursus, you read the Miracle of Castel di Sangro? And what’s this new team leading Serie B that I heard about on World Soccer Daily’s podcast today?
Kent, we should do that, though I warn you, my list of least favourite teams (especially if we expand out of football) is extremely long, petty and bitter. Sometimes I worry I spend too much disliking other teams.
Yup…the joys/agonies/ire of following sports. Mine too is long and varied!
Thomas: This is a fantastic site!
Kent, yes I hate the Mets more than the Merengues. And the first time I ever visited the Bernabeu happened to be on Franco’s birthday, which meant that in order to get into the ground I had to navigate both thousands of Falangists making Hitler salutes and a dozen or so “souvenir” sellers featuring badges with the Real Madrid crest on one side and your choice of Franco, the Falangist crest or (most charmingly for me) the SS waffen on the other.
But I was ten years old in 1969 and living in New York. Betis may break your heart, but the Mets ruined my life.
Betis were humiliated by Barca at the weekend, but I feel for you. You need to get rid of Del Nido as soon as possible, though I am afraid I don’t have a silver bullet to make that happen. The fact that Sevilla have become the more attractive club to neutrals is a truly appalling state of affairs. Seriously, they have two bishops in full regalia on their badge . . .
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro is a good book tainted only my McGuinness’ sense of moralistic superiority and inability to understand the context in which he was living. This is a rather complicated country in many ways.
The current leaders of Serie B are Albinoleffe, who are the result of a not too distant merger between the minor club sides of Albino and Leffe, two towns north of Bergamo. They play in Bergamo, in Atalanta’s ground, and have difficulty drawing flies despite an attractive style of play, good youth policy and very advantageous ticket prices. I almost bought a season ticket for them this year (even though I would use it only once or twice), as they were offering foreigners season tickets for 100 euro, and I thought it a very worthwhile initiative to support. I don’t expect them to last, or to make a lasting impression on Serie A in the event they go up. The cards are stacked too heavily against them,
Ursus:
Love the Falangist ridicule…and Sevilla too. As you can probably tell, I’m all about the anti-aristocratic sides. (Same reason why I played Inter Milan in Subbuteo when I was a kid…reason? They had cool unis and they WEREN’T AC Milan…little did I know at the time that they were the lefty club.)
So, are you me, but living in Italy? Shit man, I T-O-T-A-L-L-Y agree about the author (McGuinness) and his newfound faux superiority of soccer punditry. I read it and was like “Jesus Christ man, you just admitted that you came to soccer ten months ago and now you’re going to tell an Italian coach how to do things?” Imagine how the coach felt about McGuinness? Probably like he was a complete tool.
Betis is humiliating to us fans right now. I’ve been posting at one of their Spanish-language sites and “we’re” besides ourselves with indignation. El Duende De Lopera is a huge problem and the club’s never recovered from the drag of entering, thinking it could compete in, and getting ousted from the Champions League. Loosing Joaquin didn’t help either. Like them or not there really is no excuse for a team of their size and (in general) $ playing so poorly in any European league. Why they (and others) can’t figure out spending money on up-and-coming stars from South American and/or Africa is absolutely beyond me–as a sabermetric baseball fanatic, the concept of underappreciated talent is fundamental to sports; soccer at most clubs seems not to grasp the concept(s).
What do you mean the Mets ruined your life? You’re freaking living in Italy and seeing calcio on a regular basis. That sounds okay to me.
Cheers man.
Betis news flash. This morning’s Marca reports that Lopera (who I inadvertently confused with his opposite number across town) has entered into negotiations over the sale of his controlling stake to a local entrepreneur. I know absolutely nothing about Luis Castel de Romero, but it is pretty much impossible for him to be a worse president than the incumbent.
Suerte to Kent and all other Beticos.
He’s not a Thai dictator and he’s not the devil incarnate. Like Betis or not, they don’t deserve that SOB running them into the ground. Nonetheless, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Musho Betis