Most people are aware that Italy is soccer obsessed. So, when I moved down to Rome and my roommate Fede and her boyfriend were always going to the gi-normous Roma Olympic stadium to see Roma play, I took interest. "Hey, maybe I can come sometime?" "Angi," she'd say... "I don't know if you really would enjoy it. I get the shit kicked out of me every time and we actually don't even get to see the game because the crowd's always pushing at the best parts." She would pull up her pant leg to show me her newest array of bruises. Granted, Fede and Luca had seats in the Curva, similar to our bleachers, or at least where the rowdiest fans gather. Then after seeing a similar picture to this one:
I decided maybe it was better for me to follow the games from the safety of the neighborhood pub.
The years that followed brought new realizations that just continued to make me skeptical about the Italian soccer league, including teams buying off referees, and multiple fans and a policeman killed before and after games due to uncontrollable crowds and pure chaos.
Another scary day was when I learned that most Ultras (each team's fan organizations, a.k.a. the fans who live and die for soccer and their team) have extreme political affiliations. Bologna's the Communist team, Lazio, Fascist, etc., etc. The Captain of the Lazio team (also a member of the Fascist party) would characteristically stand in front of the Lazio Ultras and give the Roman salute (think Mussolini) to celebrate his goals.
Perhaps the worst was the day this past summer when Naples Ultras invaded Rome. Thousands of Neopolitan soccer fans showed up at the Naples train station without tickets and forced an entire train of regular, ticket-carrying passengers off of the train, and insisted that the train take them to Rome for the Roma-Napoli soccer game. The police, for whatever reason, feared causing further riots and allowed the train to depart. After causing over $750,000 in damages to the railway facilities, the fans arrived in droves to the Rome train station. These fans, many of which were masked, and some of which were brandishing weapons and/or flame throwers, paraded through the city to the stadium. Maybe it's just me, but this type of situation reminds me more of a country at war than of a group of fans checking out an away game.
And yet Italian soccer continues. My Italian friends ask me many questions about the American culture and why we do certain things or why certain things are the way they are. One has always been "Why don't you have the crazy psychos that we do at our sporting events?" And one of mine to them has always been "How do you let this madness continue in your country?" Neither of us can come up with a logical response to either, other than "Well, that's just the way it is."
I totally agree on your skeptical approach to the issue; nevertheless, please consider that what you just described is true only for Italian soccer (as Americans are used to call it). Tennis, Rugby, Basket, Volleyball stadium are always full of fans of all ages supporting together their teams in peace and respect to the opponent. Sometimes (i.e. rugby) supporters of different teams are just mixed and they enjoy the match all together. The same, if you go out of this weird country, is also true for soccer. Still, like your friend I do not have a specific answer to why this is not happening with Italian soccer. I just can tell you that my parents remember they were used to go with their parents to the stadium when they were kids. What can I say? Something happened in between...
ReplyDeleteHey Giulio! It's true, Italians that attend other types of sporting events are well behaved... however, how many people attend these events? You certainly don't hear much about those other sports, well, at least not like soccer. Soccer has a lot of violent fans in many other countries too (England, Columbia - isn't that where they shot the player that scored on his own goal??)
ReplyDeleteYes my dear, but it's not the only case. You have players killed for scoring (or for suffering scores) also in Iraq (ok, sounds fair), and in some African and other Latin American countries. As far as it seems it's a common practice, we should adopt it here as well in certain cases.
ReplyDeleteAs for the other sports you're mainly right: they have a much less wide support in many cases, but not always. I.e. Tennis and Basketball are very loved, even if they do not involve majority of the population and the media coverage is lower.