The Most Essential Question of Them All

By: Julian | April 30th, 2011

Some questions just don’t have answers. Hamlet, for example, struggled with the almighty question: why are we here?

To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

Which, if scaled a bit in scope and taken less existentially and more pertinently, can be applied to anyone reading this blog. Just why are we here, discussing calcio? Are we putting a bit too much into this? It is all just a game after all… right?

My father, despite his best efforts, just could not get us to become Inter fans. He tried as hard as he could for years, and I have the jerseys in my closet to prove it. He himself had been a diehard Interista since he was 4m since the day when his uncle took him to watch the team play in the San Siro (these were back in the years that he lived in Italy). From then on, there have only been two colors that flowed through my father’s blood. Once my brother and I were born, he’d buy us FIFA for Playstation and tempt us into playing as the club, telling us stories about men with names like Bobo Vieri and Roberto Baggio in an attempt to enchant us as he had been enchanted. We had to make due with FIFA back in the days before high speed internet, but he found ways around that. Growing up, we never had Italian channels on TV, so actually watching the games was all but impossible for us. He, however, used to travel by himself to an Italian café close to our house, in the middle of an Italian ghetto, to see his beloved every matchday. My brother and I? We just couldn’t do it.

I always had a different love, Roma. I still remember watching them for the first time, in what seems like decades ago but was, in reality, much sooner than that. From that moment on, I was hooked. That was my visit to the Meazza, my moment when I knew that this was my team, these were the guys I’d support. And ever since then, there’s been no turning back. My father still teases me about it-“How can a family of diehard Interisti produce a son that loves Roma?”- but I can’t explain why I love my team. Much like he can’t explain about his. We just do.

That doesn’t really answer the question though: Why? Why even bother? 11 men playing calcio in a country far far away from me, why even watch? It has no effect on my life, it has no bearing to anything. I could stop watching tomorrow and my life would be entirely unchanged, no?

No. There’s something more to it than that, I think. There’s something very innate about begin a fan, being a tifoso: on some level, actually loving your team. It’s so odd, so innate, that it’s hard to explain to an outsider. “Why,” my Australian roommate asks me all the time. “Who gives a crap if those guys win or lose?” His question hits at the very heart of what people who don’t watch sports don’t understand: essentially, why even bother?

And I don’t think there’s a single answer.

Is it a choice? Is it a feeling? Or is it something more?

For me, it’s the latter. My affinity to Roma is inexplicable. Watching Roma is unlike watching any other team in any other sport. It’s infinitely more meaningful, intricately more stressful, and definitely more fun. I can’t just decide to not be a Romanista anymore, and I wouldn’t want to. Choice and feeling have dovetailed beautifully, forming within me a tie to a team so close that I refer to the team as “we” colloquially.

Of course, there’s still more to it than even that. There’s the catharsis that comes with investing yourself in a team, tieing your feelings, moods and emotions directly with the result that comes with winning and losing. There’s the inexplicable joy that follows victory; the crushing disappointment that follows defeat; and tears that follow disappointment. Bandwagon fans are this viewed as something outside of being a true fan- jumping onto success doesn’t quite mean the same if failure hasn’t been tasted first either.

And all teams, no matter how good, do fail.

•

Being a fan, then, is like being in Olivander’s: the wand chooses the wizard at first, and it’s all a bit magical after that.

Some Related Serie A Posts:

Category: Serie A

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mlisi39

I blame maldini and my Italian heritage... first it was Maldini with the national team and then it was Milan...
Drewsef

Excellent – and excellently nerdy – comparison between the Harry Potter wand scene and “choosing” a football club. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I have no Italian heritage, and my family was so ignorant of football growing up that I remember my dad once yelling at me on the car ride home from a youth soccer match for not taking any shots on goal. (I tried and failed to explain that, as a defensive player, I was actually supposed to hang out in the back.) I always loved football though, and had my big epiphany watching Baggio play for the Azzurri. It just seemed immediately clear that this was who I wanted to watch, and I wanted to watch football that came from where he came from.

Of course, given my family’s lack of even basic cable, I could only watch Serie A in fits and snatches, and the club I watched was whatever club happened to be playing. At first I paid the most attention to Juve and then to Milan, as those were the clubs Baggio was on. They were good teams, fun to watch, but I just never felt anything for them. No emotional connection, no real involvement in whether they won or lost. Fast-forward a few years later, and I hear about this ridiculously talented Brazilian kid named Ronaldo who’d just been transferred to that one team from Milano with the strangely un-Italian-sounding name. No, not AC Milan, the other one. Inter, right. That one. So I started paying attention.

A few years later I spent around a year and a half living in Milano as a teenage exchange student, and everything just clicked. Most of my buddies there were rossoneri, with a couple glory-hunter Juve fans as well. (Back then, “glory-hunter Juve fans” was actually a thing.) So I was sort of the weirdo supporting Inter, but I liked that. I loved the players – both Zanettis, Vieri, Toldo, Cordoba, Martins, the talented-yet-infuriating Recoba, the then-genuinely-scary Materazzi – but more than that I just loved the feeling of the club, learning about its history, and the fans. I loved the San Siro, and though I was usually too broke to go to games, the Navigli bars on match day were almost as fun.

I also loved the integration of foreign-born players. Milano was and still is a global city, and about half of my “Italian friends” were technically from somewhere else. Moroccans who were born and raised in Italy, South Americans with Italian passports, North Africans, Chinese, Eastern Europeans, even the stray fellow American. Milano is a hell of a melting pot, and Inter seemed to reflect that in the lineups it fielded.

(One anecdote: for a school project, I paid a visit to the Milanese headquarters of the Italian Communist party, which is about as powerless a political party as Italy has. It was a pretty sad-looking place – located in a sketchy part of the city, in a poorly-kept building, looking like it hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned in a while. The spokesman I talked to had a framed Inter jersey up in his office, and when I pointed it out, he said, with an unmistakable air of melancholy: “I always support lost causes.”)

So that was when full-on Inter fandom took hold, and it’s remained since. I wasn’t happy with the form that Inter’s rise to the top took – look, despite some reservations I’m mostly on the Inter side of the whole Calciopoli issue, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to break out the Champagne over a court ruling – but the treble last year was something I never thought I would see, and it would have been just another season without those years of anger, disappointment and disillusionment.
FrancescoItalyOffside

I became a Milan fan yesterday. I saw that they were first place and fell in love.
Christopher Noyes

I was in Italy on a study abroad program the summer of 2006. We were studying in Florence and the instructor who went with us was a huge Toni fan (she thought he was the cutest on the team). Via the transitive property I became a Toni fan and a Florence (the city) fan. However I didn't get into soccer until 2009. After moving into town with my GF's family, I was much closer to her Italian relatives who all follow soccer. One of her uncles is a Fiorentina fan and I just started following Fiorentina news since I had always liked Toni and love the city.

It's tough for me and my GF's uncle because everyone else in her family supports either Milan or Inter. So we're constantly being made fun of for supporting a team that's just not quite good enough when compared to the Milan teams.
Nerazzurro

Loved it. So your brother's a Romanista as well? I wish I had Serie A fans in my family, or football fans tout-court (goddamn Belgians and their bicycle racing). You're a lucky man Julian, even if your relatives support a team you probably don't like.
Julian

He's actually a Madridista. Papa, needless to say, is quite disappointed with how we turned out.
Dani

great post julian!
as you said, is not a conscious choice, the club simply pick you at one point of your life. for me it happened when I was very little, during the Champions Cup Final vs Liverpool, and with a start like that (and my very first memory as Roma fan is Cerezo having cramps on the sideline during that game) I should have known what I was going to face in the future: disappointment, frustration, loosing finals and what not. but the choice was made and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm a romanista, no matter what.
Weston (@wpazzurri)

Being a younger individual living in the south of the USA and being born to parents with absolutely no connection to sports whatsoever, i did not become a fan of the beautiful game until i stumbled upon the World Cup in 2006. It was then that i became involved, and Juventus chose me.

Therefore, the question i ask is not "Why them?" but rather, "Why then?" I mean honestly, who wouldve decided unwittingly to become a Juve fan at the start of the 2006-07 season? I would, with no knowledge of scandals or past glory or tiers.

Sometimes i wish i could have been around to see my team in their glory days, but then i realize this period of weakness in our history would be just that much more painful if i knew what i was missing.

Forza Bianconeri Forever.
Rdj8

Here's something I get alot :

''Why do you care so much about Juventus? your not even Italian."

I just hate it when they ask me that.

Great post Julian.
JoGadsby

Yes, I would agree. I am from a Reading family, but I've always been Liverpool/Inter, because of their sheer class. I can see why you dont support inter, though. Prior to our champions league win, we were the most universally hated team in the world. Every time we scored, a little child in Liguria, Calabria, campania, toscana, etc. Would cry, and the day we won the league would be a national day of morning. But now everyone loves us.
piro

This is great for you. Unfortunately, I began following Italian Football this year and I was chosen...by Brescia. It was a foolish allegiance to the city's history as a center of string-instrument production combined with the idea of following the ups and downs of a team getting another shot at the top and struggling to survive.

Instead I got Iachini's unwillingness to even try and utilize what slim offensive capabilities he had and now, next year I'll get to know a whole bunch of new teams: Sassuolo, Empoli, Livorno, Crotone.

Thank you, wand.
Samuel Dieudonne.

You still have your fair share of enemies. The glory hunters will soon leave as well. lol
JoGadsby

It Is comforting to know that we are still hated.
JoGadsby

True. Italian Wikipedia devotes an entire entry to inter's rivalries. Even I can't name them all offhand, but here's a try
Atalanta
Milan
Juve
Roma
Hellas Verona
Brescia
Genoa
Sampdoria
Cagliari
And probably so much more...
Elaine

My husband was born & raised in Rome, family all Romanisti. But he chose Juve. Or Juve chose him. So I watched Juve for a long time, but felt nothing. It was when I watched Milan that my heart began beating and for the first time ever, I felt like I could truly breathe.

Would I have chosen a team owned by the most corrupt man ever? No, not at all. Would I have chosen a team from a city I've never seen? Why? Would I have chosen a team that is very much a rival to my husband's team? Never.

But like your Ollivander's analogy, the Rossoneri chose me, and the magic will never change: not through Scudetto victories, relegation sadness, or even worse, just pure mediocrity. My heart will only ever beat for Milan, and there is nothing I can do to change that.
agiamba

Your husband is a great great man.
Samuel Dieudonne.

First off let me congratulate you on a well written post before I vomit my profound views on the issue. Having hailed from a football loving family, I was very involved with the sport at a really early age. My father was and still is an impassioned Brazil National team supporter and eventually I picked that up from him. He would never stop raving on about old greats from the 70-80's most notably Socrates, Zico, and Jaizirnho. I concisely remember us watching the 1998 nail bitter semi-final against Holland together. I guess that game is when I developed a very strong emotional bond with Seleção. Since then I have been supporting the team vigorously and I always cause a riot whenever they're playing. There's no way to truly explain why you choose to support a club side or national team. Something simply happens and as a result of it you're hooked for life.

Sorry to have brought up a National Team in what appears to be a club team post/discussion. My sincere apologies for that. I am an A.C Milan supporter if you're curious and I support them as passionately or quiet possibly even more so. Paolo Maldini pretty much did it for me the right flank, from the moment I saw him intercepting opponents with such grace on the left side I defense I knew the black & red would be where my club allegiance lies. But it wasn't just him. Back during the days when I watched my first few games, Milan had the likes of Costacurta at the back. Thomas Helveg in midfield, the magical George Weah in attack. His wonder goal against Chievo Verona is something one will never wipe out of their head head. Simply phenomenal. I'll support this team with everything even if they get relegated to the depths of Serie C2. Does such a championship even exists?! Anyhow just to give some insight on just how much I love the shirt.
Sndkjslwjdy

I agree entirely
Julien

As an Arsenal fan I often ask the Gods, "Why Arsenal?! What have I done to deserve this?!", and there've been times when I've wished that I was born a Utd fan - life would've been simpler.

But, if I wanted, I could support Utd - what's stopping me?

On the face of it; nothing, but as you've said in your post, fandom runs deeper than merely keeping up with results, it's almost tribal this sense of belonging and unity with the club. It's not that you're not allowed to switch sides, you're not able to.

What draws us to a particular club? Sure tradition, history and the city it's based in play a part, but many fans pledge their allegiance when they are very young. Too young perhaps, to care about where the stadium is; more concerned about where the team is in the league, or, whether they wear red or blue. For me, having parents who don't care for football meant that I was drawn to the team that my friends liked.

As I've grown up and learnt to appreciate football from different cities, countries and cultures I've been faced with a different prospect; who do I choose to support? I felt that to learn more about a league, you should support, or at least follow, a club in it, so I forced myself to support PSG, Villarreal and BVB Dortmund.

But football just doesn't work like that. I had chosen these teams for reasons as trivial as kits or former players, there was no real link to the club; Dortmund won the league today, but I didn't/couldn't celebrate. Becoming a fan depends on you having honest feelings for a club. You can not simply flick a switch.

I've since given up on being a fan of teams other than Arsenal; my Serie A experiment has lead to me, at different times, "supporting" Sampdoria, Napoli, Milan, Roma and Juventus, so you can tell how that went!

Without really planning it, I think that I've started to "support" players over teams; Angel di Maria, Totti and Thiago Silva to name a few players whom I genuinely love but for whose teams I care little.

This, at least, help prevent the "neutral" situation, which is awful, no matter what the commentators say! Perhaps, in order to fully enjoy football you have to have an allegiance, somehow or another.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you can not force, or chose to support a team; it will come naturally.

I like how you mentioned referring to Roma as "we" - do you find that you say "they were rubbish" but "we were amazing"? I have to restrain myself from saying "we" because at uni I am surrounded by people like your roommate; it's a living hell.
Julian

I have, although as a Roma fan I find myself saying the opposite a lot of the time. Interesting point as well cause there have been times where I thought "Man, if I just supported Barca it would be great, winning all the time." Except that I don't think it would, for the reasons I described re: bandwagon fans. If you only experience success without failure, the fruit only tastes half as sweet. It's when you take the seeds, till the earth, water them daily, watch it grow, and then eat the fruit that you truly appreciate all that goes into it.
Sairax

That was beautiful Julian *sniff* I think I have something in my eye.....
Kirsten Schlewitz

I think many people believe there's a big difference between getting your colors handed to you and choosing them on your own. As for me, my family isn't into football, so I made all my own choices...but that doesn't mean I could give them up. When I'm angry, or depressed about the way one of my teams is playing, I do consider it briefly -- just giving up on this whole sport of football. But it never sticks.

I like to pretend I don't play favorites with my favorite clubs (I have five, but all in separate leagues...I'm sorry but you can't love two clubs in one league, which is an entirely different post) but I do. I live and die with the Villa and with Napoli, and then comes the Seattle Sounders, Fenerbahce, Exeter City. But I'll watch football all day long (I kinda have to) and not feel anything approaching that kind of thrill, or that kind of dejection, I get with my favorite clubs. I'll get angry, sure, but it's more about how a match's result affects my team more than anything else. I can admire the skill of Messi, but in the end, it means nothing to me because he's not on my teams.

As for why bother, well, it's because when it's good, it's really really good. To form an actually connection with the club, beyond just idly checking the score, leaves you open to way too much pain for something that you really had no hand in. But just like any other sort of love, that pain is easily forgotten, outweighed by what comes after. Today for example...83 minutes of utter pain, suffering, heart palpitations, cursing, digging my nails into my own flesh...it all got erased by Marek Hamsik. One little thing and the adrenaline comes flooding through. Like you put it -- it's catharsis.
Matilda

For me it's about catharsis. It's something you can be completely emotionally invested in, this is YOUR TEAM, but if they fail it's not your fault. You feel awful, but you don't feel guilty. It's something to identify with that's external. It's a way to get out of your own life, and be a part of 20,000 people all wanting the same thing. And part of it you can't put into words at all, it's just something you feel when watching your team. It's like any other passion, be it religion, art, or Harry Potter, you don't fully understand it until you feel it.
Anthony

I'm somewhere in the middle. I think a feeling caused me to choose, watching the club play coupled with the city it represents. I love Rome, my favorite city in the world, I could sit at a different cafe everyday and just sit and admire it. That helped to foster my attachment to Roma. It would have been natural for me to go with Palermo, the club of my grandfather, but i still have yet to visit, and other then my grandpa have no attachment to Sicily, that coupled with all the sicilians all seem to be fans of their local clubs, palermo, catania, but also one of the big clubs which they seem just as attached to, generally juve, milan, or napoli. So when i fell in love with Rome, i fell in love with roma.