General thread on football (or soccer as some say - please don't waste this thread argueing what to call it).
There is a sports thread yes but it is full of American users, this thread discusses Leagues in Europe, International matches and the game itself I suppose.

Who do you support? Who's you're favourite player/manager etc, and where are you from?

I'm german, and my fave club would be borussia mönchengladbach. kind of. I'm not an avid soccer fan really, but a small affection for mönchengladbach (or gladbach, as people use to call it) comes from my family.
anyway, after their prime in the 1970's with 5 national titles I guess, they've always been around, but never really successful, for decades. in the last years though they've repeatedly managed to participate in the CL, partly due to their good former coach lucien favre, but never got that far. I'm expecting they'll end up in the 3rd CL group spot, which is alright because they're in a killer group with man city and barca.
anyway, this year's bundesliga is weird. of course the record champion bayern munich is leading, but all the other usual CL suspects (dortmund, leverkusen, gladbach, wolfsburg, schalke) are lost somewhere in the standings. instead you have those kinda middle-of-the road clubs like cologne, hertha bsc berlin, hoffenheim and rb leipzig (who've just been promoted from the 2nd bundesliga) up there. so I guess the most exciting questions will be the places 2-6, which mean qualification for european competitions, and whether hamburg SV, who're doing really badly, will finally get relegated to the 2nd league. iirc they're the last club that's always been around in the bundesliga since its inception.
I'm personally hoping for gladbach to qualify for a european competition, hamburg to get relegated (which would be in their own interest actually), and maybe for some nice surprises that do not involve leipzig ending up #1.

I am not an avid soccer fan either but I support my local team, Real Sociedad from Donostia(San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain). Not a top team but when things go smoothly we can fight betwen the 7-8 beast teams. Although we have foreigners a major part of the players are Basque or at least have played in the junior teams.

Apart from this when I can I tend to watch Barcelona´s matches because its always a pleaure to see Messi or Iniesta.

If I take a look to other European leagues I used to like Borussia Dortmund back in time and Zenit more recently, mainly thanks to their fast playing.

yeah, dortmund is 6th currently, it seems they need to get used to not being coached by klopp anymore. great, charismatic coach btw, which does, apart from tactical, technical etc. skills, indeed play a role for a team and their fans in terms of identification and motivation. I wonder what he'll make of liverpool, and how long he'll coach them.

Liverpool. With no Europe this season and the first full Klopp-era team, I think we have a good stab at the championship even though Man City and Arsenal look to be tough contenders. I've been supporting them since I was a kid from approx. 93-94 - so I have never seen Liverpool win it.

My favourite team is Sporting Clube de Portugal, sometimes known as Sporting Lisbon outside of Portugal. We're one of the "Big Three" portuguese clubs, along with Porto and Benfica, our greatest rivals. We have a total of 47 titles in football. Out of the big three we have the less titles in football, but in all sports combined we have the most titles. In terms of football, our golden years were the 40's and the 50's. These days we are most famous for having developed players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Figo. We have over 3 million fans.

My favourite non-portuguese team has always been Borussia Dortmund.

I'm an Arsenal fan, and have been ever since 2004, when I saw the majestic face of Thierry Henry on the cover of FIFA 2004. I'm ashamed to admit that I had my glory hunting days when I way less mature, but I have become more dedicated as a fan after growing wiser and knowing what it means to stick by your team. Wenger always a pain in the ass, but he always manages to give us a spot in the Champions League, and he came through with the summer transfer market over the past couple of years. Now that he announced that he may step down, it's a little sad to see the man leave after 20 years of service.

A fan of Liverpool here. Casual, non-English one at that. I was sold after watching that game in Istanbul, and still want Rafa to win everything (that isn't in conflict with LFC winning it ). I didn't bother to watch any games after 2013/14 because...well because. That changed with the 2015/16 season, and even more so after majestic Brendan was sacked.

I'm a Borussia Dortmund fan for Bundesliga matters, but for personal football appreciation matters I like to support 4th division (regional league) VfB Oldenburg. Never been into the Premier League until Klopp joined Liverpool, now I always keep up with how they do. Quite good, I must say!

Dortmund btw have a good team and good coach and will do well this season, at least if and when they manage to not be as plagued by injuries as they are at the moment.

Btw into_the_pit, that RB Leipzig were just promoted from the 2nd Bundesliga is an understatement, they were playing in some county division nine years ago. The things money can buy...

yes of course, it's all red bull's money, which is the main reason that team is widely hated among german soccer fans. but I wasn't sure how much people on here care about that specific club's "history".
still, the rb leipzig story is quite the phenomenon, considering the status and "success" of other bundesliga clubs backed by companies or individuals with big money (bayer, kind, vw, sap and even kühne & nagel LOL)

It's because Red Bull actually have a future- and goal-oriented concept while Wolfsburg just throws money at big names and Hamburg I have no idea what exactly their plan is, I think every single person involved in the club has a different one and they all try to push their own against those of the others.

3 Liverpool fans already? I see I won't be making any friends in this thread. Everton being the best team in the world means naturally, Liverpool and their fans are all red scum from Mordor. It's bizarre where all their international fans come from. They seem to have the support of the whole of Norway and now Germany, not to mention an immense Asian fanbase, and they recently played a series of sold out games in Australia of all places, with attendances over 3x their own domestic football games. Bleh.

the thing is that kühne guy from kühne & nagel interferes in the daily soccer business, transfer decisions etc., just because he's holding shares for like 25 million bucks or something, and nobody dares to tell him to fuck off.
seriously, I think the club should be relegated in order to be able to re-organize and start again from scratch. right now it is (and has been for a long time) a shitty situation for everyone involved. they'd lose their bundesliga license in an instant anyway if kühne left, they're so plunged in debt.

Lifelong Arsenal fan right here, so far things are looking good this season . I'm also a fairly big follower of the other European leagues, I've always had a liking for Dortmund in Germany so I guess they'd be my second-favourite team.

Good to see a football thread here.

Aberdeen's my team. I try to wear my Marduk shirt to games because it's the only t-shirt I have with a splash of red on it.

Got a soft spot for Utrecht after living there for a while. Was once horrified to find a sticker on a lamp-post downtown which had a sort of 'Utrecht - Rangers' alliance emblem. Needless to say that was peeled off and put in the trash posthaste!

Couldn't care less about the Scottish national team thanks to the clowns who run our game. Love international tournaments; got no time for the 'champions league' though.

My favourite team is Hammarby. It is currently the team in Sweden that draws the most amount of fans but when it comes to results we have only won the league once and that was in 2001. We went through 5 years in the Swedish second league but have since established ourselves in the top league (this and last season).

For me it was all Hammarby since I first picked a team as a child. There are three big Stockholm clubs and among my friends most were supporting Djurgården (DIF) and some AIK. This was because I grew up in a part of town where Hammarby didn't have its stronghold (which is south Stockholm and its suburbs). I probably choose Hammarby to be a little bit different. I went to some games as a youngster in the late 90's but didn't start caring again until 2009 or so. When I did my interest increased greatly.

I also started watching the Premier League about 6 years ago. I have lived in England but never had a strong connection to either of its teams. But starting to watch the games I realized that I quite liked West Ham and I saw some parallels to my Swedish club. So I started to follow them and see all the games and it has developed into something stronger emotionally throughout the years. I consider myself a supporter of WHU now but the connection will obviously never be the same as the one I have with my local team.



You'll end up in the top 4 as usual but missing out on winning the PL - as always

Djurgårdens IF

Like many clubs in Sweden, it has departments in several sports. The two by far biggest though are football and hockey. The club itself was formed in 1891, and the football department was formed in 1899. We have won 11 championships, giving a shared 5th place of the 19 clubs who have won it. And 5 cup titles which is 6th best of the 17 who've won that title. Both our latest championship and latest cup titles are from 2005.

Some well-known players who have played for DIF are Ted Sheringham of great Manchester U fame, and Ibrahim Ba who played for AC Milan among others. And Jesper Blomqvist who played for both those clubs.

The most famous player currently in the team is the goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson who returned this summer after many years abroad in clubs like Manchester City, PSV Eindhoven among others. Hopefully we can get Kim Källström to return to the club soon as well after his years abroad in clubs like Arsenal among others...

Daniel Amartey who was and still is in Leicester which of course super surprisingly won the Premier League earlier this year played for us a few years ago and was brought to Europe from Africa by us.

I'm a season-ticket holder since 2002, and the first season I was, we won our first championship since 1966. My first couple of years as someone who goes to games were very extraordinary. I started going to games in 1999 and here are the first seasons:

1999 - relegation
2000 - winning the second league
2001 - 2nd place as a newcomer
2002 - champions and cup champions
2003 - champions
2004 - cup champions, and playing 2-2 against Juventus away in what I believe was the first competitive game for Fabio Capello at Juve.
2005 - champions and cup champions

Then mostly calm years except for 2007 where we were fairly close to winning again, and 2009 where we were very close to being relegated but managed to escape direct relegation and reached relegation play-off instead where we lost the first game 2-0 but won the home game 3-0 after extra time. After that we've been pretty much cemented in the middle of the league.

Cool fact: in the very first edition of Champions League, or the European Cup as it was called then, in 1955–56, we were one of the 16 participating clubs. We beat Gwardia Warszawa in the first round and lost to Hibernian in the quarter-finals. Real Madrid won the entire tournament.

About fans, when we are at our best we are the best in the the country. Both in football and hockey. A previous post was about another team having the biggest crowd at games, but it should be pointed out that they are notorious for having lots of people who move in from other parts of Sweden picking them at a late age because they don't have a club from childhood. Which is why that club is often referred to as hillbillies, which this choreography at a derby against them illustrates, among other things:

How then does your team manage to have so many fans?

See the last paragraph of my post above yours.

There is a big rivalry between teams and Dembo's post is a good example of how this is expressed by some. Hammarby have always had a sort of "peoples club" feeling (and our rivals often cast us as looser mentality, druggies, workers club etc). From the inside it is quite happy-go-lucky. I think this is appealing to people. The other two are generally cast as more tough boy/bad attitude in the case of AIK and overclass/spoilt people in the case of Djurgården. These are all stereotypical of course.

Since we moved to a new arena in 2013 things have exploded. We didn't always sell out the old one (maximum capacity around 13000) but with the new one (maximum capacity 30000) things got huge. Our audience average has been around 24000 people since! We had the best audience average in Sweden total during our last year in the second division - quite a feat. And we kept being number one once we advanced as well. Last year we broke the all time home game audience average record with 25507 people. We share the new arena with Dembos team, DIF, and they average 14500.

Obviously with so much wind in our backs we have many new people in the stands. I think the key part is that we have been able to attract the people that before stayed at home and watched the games on TV. Add to that a good timing in that the advancement to Swedens first division came at a time that was the first whole season we played at the new arena (2014). Before that the team had been in a rut for 6 years. I think Hammarby has had the capacity for a long time but we managed to create a hype around our games and have managed to keep the people coming.

And its one of the classic clubs in Swedens biggest city which obviously makes us have more potential fans than a club from a smaller place. Remember Sweden is a tiny country based on the amount of people living here. For any other city it would be almost impossible to draw such crowds only based on that (with an exception of Gothenburg and perhaps Malmö).

http://blogg.fotbollskanalen.se/statist ... 2012-2016/

The graphics in the link shows the top three Stockholm teams (Hammarby, AIK and Djurgården) audiences. We all play at new arenas and the first part of each diagram shows the last few games at our respective old arenas and the more colourful ones show the result after the move.

The workers club profile is actually driven by Hammarby fans themselves. No-one would use that as a bad stereotype. In reality, I'd say pretty much every club in the world are workers clubs including all the ones discussed here. For example the most pioneering Swedish punk rock band had three members: the guitarist/vocalist is a Djurgården fan, the bass player an AIK fan, and the drummer a Hammarby fan.

And yeah, the "peoples club" feeling is one of the many myths associated with Hammarby, especially outside of Stockholm. In smaller towns where it's common to have a hockey or bandy team in the top divisions but not one in football, alot of people buy into that myth and "choose" (right there we have a problem) Hammarby. Even though Hammarby also have hockey and bandy departments. And in hockey they have very few fans going to games, usually only a couple of hundred actually, whereas Djurgården are about 6-8 000 and sometimes when playing at the bigger arena around 10 or even 13 000.

I could post tons of pictures of people, car stickers, lists of people, etc. showing how people have Hammarby as their team in football and another one in hockey/bandy, completely ignoring Hammarby outside of football and strongly contributing to the hillbilly and plastic vibe around Hammarby.

Then of course during the last couple of years there are differences in how the respective clubs make decisions around marketing, recruiting people who have no team, etc., areas in which I actually blame my own club for not doing a better job.


Important note: those years we had nothing but years in the middle of the league, which is the worse for attracting crowds. In the top, more people are going for obvious reasons, and at the bottom the last couple of games may be attracting alot more people if they are important in the battle for avoiding relegation. Whereas if in the middle, there's the least amount of excitement and thus lower amount of attendees. And during Hammarby's first couple of years at the new stadium, they were around the top of the second tier, which causes more excitement than a regular middle season in the top division.

Here's statistics ranging 2001-2015:

I support Middlesbrough, I don't really follow football often (the last match I went to would have been in 2012 or so), but I'd be lying if said that their '96-98 seasons weren't a huge part of my childhood. I watch matches sporadically nowadays, but they always seem to do terribly whenever I watch.

I never meant it as negative stereotype. It is true that it is fed by our own fans for sure. And you are right, most clubs are workers clubs - at least in their beginnings. However the view of them change with time. Just like your Djurgården which was a pure working class club but that is now stereotypically portrayed as upper class and Stureplan.



Yeah, the hockey division files for bankruptcy some years back. It was started again as a supporter driven club and was taken back under the Hammarby umbrella two or three years ago. They have struggled for many reasons. The biggest might be the arena situation which they share, do not have their own dressing rooms and that are located in a place where it is somewhat harder to attract people to. Currently stable in the third division though and I think this is where the team will be until something changes quite radically.

The bandy division and the handball division are quite strong though in regards of crowd support. Its all about different cultures and histories within our clubs.



Yes, I hear this all the time from supporters of DIF and AIK. Its a way or rousing feelings and provoking - keeping the rivalry going. Thats fine, it doesn't effect me much. Most common is the stereotype of the person that supports Hammarby in football and Leksand in hockey. In truth all popular teams in Sweden attract fans from all over the country. It is just the way it works. It was the same during the glory years of IFK Göteborg. Many started supporting them in football while having a local favourite hockey team.
I actually saw a poll that researched how many people who supported Leksand in hockey also supported another club in football. All three big Stockholm clubs ended up in the top three places, as I remember quite close to each other, but that it was AIK that topped the list. I dunno how representative this was but it was quite funny.



No, this is wrong. 2013 was a mid-table type season where we actually sacked our trainer mid-season. We finished 5th but a longw ay away from the three top spots. 2014 however was a success with us winning the league. And the for the past two years we've been in the first division struggling quite a lot after half of the season but managing to finish in mid-table, quite comfortable, by the end.

Well, you said "our rivals often cast us as looser mentality, druggies, workers club etc". It's true we consider Hammarby as having a loser mentality and the druggie thing is also brought up among your rivals, though much more in the past. But rivals of Hammarby don't call Hammarby a workers club except when sarcastically pointing out stuff that's contrary to that. Such as the area Södermalm nowdays being one of the most expensive areas, the selling out to an American oil-related super capitalist Anschutz, one of their big profiles having the upper class-clinging name von Schleebrügge, the super corporation McDonalds having Hammarby-themed ads, their profile Björn Runström when returning to Hammarby was standing by his luxury car on Stureplan with his backslick haircut, etc.


In 2013 the new stadium itself draws a crowd, and we have a higher average attendance in that year as seen in the graph above. In 2014 you're in the top of the second tier, 2015 you've got the momentum of being a newcomer in the top division after more than half a decade outside it, and in 2016 there's still some of it left though it's fading.

Pardon me for intruding in your "people's club" discussion, but I feel like adding two cents to it. I'm not gonna comment on Swedish football since I know almost nothing about it, let alone fan support.

It seems every country has a club or two that gets labelled as "the people's club". Not always being the most popular club which gets that label. I believe in The Netherlands, Feyenoord is the one who gets that label, despite Ajax being more well-supported. Maybe it comes from Rotterdam being an industrial city? I've also seen people referring to Germany's Schalke as the "people's club" from Germany.

Here in Portugal, Benfica is considered the "people's club", which I've always assumed so because of it being the most popular club, meaning it's well supported among people of every social class, political ideology, etc. and that you can find a benfiquista in any part of the country. Some interpret "people's club" as being the most popular club among the poor/lower classes. In counterpart, Sporting seems to get labelled as a "social elite" club, which is odd since there's also lots of Sporting fans(hell, probably even more than Porto fans still) and most of them aren't what you'd call "social elite". I've met benfiquistas and sportinguistas of every social class, honestly. Not that I keep track, but I don't really notice a pattern. I think it might have applied back in the early 20th century when both clubs were founded, since Sporting was founded by a royalty member and its stadium is in a traditionally upper-middle class part of Lisbon, whilst Benfica couldn't build their own stadium until 1954, but things change a lot in 100 years. I believe the Porto fans "stereotype" is the most accurate one. Their fans are sorta regional based, mostly located in the Oporto's metro area and spread across the North of the country. There aren't that many Porto fans in the central and southern parts of Portugal.

It seems people's "choice" of support here comes from family tradition. Everyone's reason to support a side here is "because my family supports them" or "the father or mother side of my family, which is the one I'm closest to, supports the club". Club affiliation is a bit like religion, I guess. If your parents support a certain club, it's unlikely you'll end up supporting a different side. I guess this is a universal thing.


That's a consequence of globalisation. Every big and popular EPL side has fans spread all over the globe these days. Not just Liverpool. So I don't know why you find it that odd that Liverpool in particular have Asian and Norwegian fans.

And speaking of that, I find it sad the way European football is heading. UEFA might as well tell most countries to fuck off and just make a competition exclusive to top English, Spanish, Italian clubs and Bayern München. This leads people from countries like Norway to not care about their local sides, which is pretty sad.

Not what I said at all. Even Liverpool supporters are annoyed at the number of tourists at Anfield. They have season ticket holders flying over from the continent for every game. If it were an 'inevitable consequence of globalisation' you'd find that at every home ground.

Fuck man, you really like to cling on to stuff I said I didn't mean it the way it came across. No need to bring it up again.



Sure, I would agree with all of this (although your analysis did change from post to post - this one being the more accurate one). It will be interesting to follow in the years to come especially since all three clubs have new arenas and our development differs quite a lot.

Who do you think the arena itself didn't draw as much for DIF during 2013 as it did for us? In regards to results we were in a much worse shape.



No worries. I much prefer a balanced discussion instead of the regular trying-to-evoke-an-emotional-response that seems to happen too often when fans from rival clubs try to discuss (see above for a concrete example). I would agree that it is not always the most popular club that gets to be called the peoples club. In Sweden I always saw it as the personality of the club. Hammarby has been seen as quite including - in a warm family kind of way.

In relation to this and to what you write my father has always supported AIK and my mother used to say she supported DIF (but she doesn't really care) but they both said Hammarby was ok. I've felt much of the same attitude throughout my growing up. Mostly because the big rivalry always was AIK vs Djurgården where I lived. So while everyone knew of Hammarby, few supported the club and it wasn't very heated between the fans in the school yard . So while there was always a rivalry with Hammarby from other clubs we were rarely, or ever, the main rivals. I think that has helped in us being viewed as the people's club.

It is interesting how you note that many inherit club support since it was the opposite of what happened to me. But then again I was always the person who liked to think different. I think that was one main reason as to why I happened to support Hammarby. Thinking back to it it was pretty awesome. My father took me to the AIK vs Hammarby derby and we were among the Hammarby supporters - right smack in the middle of everything - despite my father supporting the other team. He always wore his AIK pin and started small talk with Hammarby fans at the games. Everyone was respectful and always told me that my father was wrong but at least he raised me in the right way. Good times! Warms my heart until this day.

Huh? Why does that seem to happen more often with Liverpool than with other EPL clubs, then? Liverpool haven't won much in the last years, so what's bringing all those foreign supporters to their stadium?


Well, people usually pick their side when they're little kids, and who "thinks different" at age of 7-8? It's almost like a ritual for parents and uncles(if they're really into football, obviously) to offer their team's scarf or teddy bear to a kid relative of theirs on their birthday or as a Christmas gift. That and taking their young nephew or son to the stadium a few time. If a whole family supports the same side, I guess a kid won't think twice but follow the rest of his family in that choice.

I've heard people say "no future son of mine will support a rival!" and they truly believe that. I wouldn't doubt some parents think they failed somewhere if their children supported a different team. As for wives/mothers, well women generally aren't as much into football, so you'll see cases of women eventually adopting their husband's and children's team. But this only applies to women who really don't care much about football. Some people here claim to support a club despite watching about 1 game per season on TV on average. They just say it out of tradition or because they're socially pressured to have a club, I guess.

Legacy I think. Liverpool was a club with great success when the premier league interest really took off (at least in Sweden). There are so many people that became fans of the club right then and there and they have kept supporting them and raised their kids to do so. It is still viewed as one of the big clubs. In Sweden it is easy to see how most people choose clubs depending on the success they have or have had. If a person here supports an English club the vast majority supports Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool. The more success Manchester City sees the more fans they get. But man, it is rare to see anyone root for Stoke, Hull or Burnley.

Chelsea...legacy? Hahaha.

This thread on a LFC fansite goes some way to explaining the Norway connection.

Liverpool haven't been champions since... 1990? Although they did win a UEFA Cup around the turn of the century and the Champions League in 2005. I'd think Man Utd who won countless trophies in the 90s and 2000s and Chelsea who only became a big club in the late 90s/early 2000s would have more foreigners claiming to be their fans.

In Portugal, you wont' really find people supporting a foreign club. They might say "oh I like Manchester United or AC Milan", but it's not THEIR club. Or, if anything, it's just their second club. They'd never support it over their Portuguese club. And btw, here there's a phenomenon about small clubs. With most of the small club fans also supporting one of the big 3 clubs(Benfica, Sporting and Porto). A guy you se on the stands of Arouca's, Beira-Mar's or Académica's stadium will most likely also have a preference for one of the big 3. We call those people "bi-clubistas" here. I think the only small clubs that don't have many of those are Vitória SC(Guimarães), Belenenses and Boavista; and even those have some. Braga fans used to be known for also being Benfica, Sporting or Porto fans. But in the last decade the club has gotten wealthier and achieving good league positions and some good European results which made several of their fans stop also supporting Benfica, Sporting or Porto.

I wonder if this "bi-clubism" phenomenon occurs anywhere else in the world.


I see. Interesting.

Can't really relate to that since Primeira Liga isn't really watched worldwide(it's a small league). But I've seen some Brazilians and Romanians following our bigger clubs before. I once talked to a Romanian who had above average knowledge about Portuguese football, including scandals. I was quite surprised.

Alot of it is regurgitating of stereotypical myths by lazy journalists and people who wanna talk sports without being knowledgable. And also people supporting other clubs will have a less hostile view of clubs that very rarely are in serious competition to them. So with Djurgården having tons of tradition with important games in both of the two by far biggest sports in Sweden, with all the hockey playoffs through-out the years causing alot of people to hate us for being involved in and sometimes losing important games to us, finals and whatnot, maybe several times, any bad stereotype will be easily repeated even if there's little to no truth to it. And the more important games one club have against another, the higher probability for supporter-related incidents as well which increases the hostility between them. Whereas they will be more okay with repeating good stereotypes about clubs to which they have no hostile relation or bad associations, even if there's little to no truth to those good stereotypes either.

Oh and about Hammarby being inclusive, in recent years there are more opinions among active Hammarby fans about being ashamed of the amount of people who support other clubs in other sports. And it would be interesting to see how many would stop supporting Hammarby in football if Hammarby's hockey department went up the tiers and started becoming a team that people in the smaller towns grew hostile towards for game related reasons for a period of time. Or simply realized how fucked up it is to during the winter support the opponents of the club with the same crest/logo as the one they support during the summer. But about the inclusiveness, these comments suggest otherwise, talking about it being sick and spitting on people like him:




Hammarby flag, Leksand flag (hockey) and a Chelsea pillow...

And on forums in recent years since the move to the new stadium, there have been much talk about people with various non-Stockholm accents not knowing the chants yet standing in the active part of the stadium with Hammarby clothes, etc. If anything, the increased crowd at Hammarby games in recent years have caused a growing identity crisis among their fans.


Sounds like it very likely could have been about a kid choosing something that would not mean choosing between the parents.


It does. And it's ridiculous. Sure, one may sympathize to some degree with some clubs for whatever reason, but not to be a second-team type of supporter or, even worse, having several teams as their team in a regular way. I almost puked recently when reading someone in the sports thread saying he went to Sporting-Dortmund and was happy regardless of result because he supports both clubs.

Well, Portugal is a small country and the difference between Benfica/Sporting/Porto and the rest of the league is abysmal. Only 2 clubs out of these have been able to win the league: Belenenses back in the 40s and Boavista in 2001(I was 10. I witnessed history). Who knows if I'll live ti see a team like Braga or Vitória Guimarães win the Portuguese league.

Attendance rates in our league are not that great. And people tend to say "screw this" when their team goes on bad form. Despite the crisis in the last few years, Benfica have had their best attendances in the last few years since like the early-mid 80s. Because every season from 2009/2010 on they either won the league or fought for it, whilst the 90s-early 2000s were their worst period in history.

I have no problems with a guy from Argentina supporting both River Plate and, let's say, Inter Milan. They're clubs form two different parts of the world and the odds of both facing each other in a non-friendly match are quite low. Just like I don't mind a Portuguese basketball fan supporting both Benfica and the Chicago Bulls for the same reason. Howeve,r those American and Australian fans who claim to be a "Bayern/Real Madrid/Juventus fan!" are cringeworthy.

For the record, I'm not a Liverpool fan but a fan of the coach who got me into Bundesliga football (and Dortmund.)

If I had a kid, I would undoubtedly not allow them to have another team except mine, apart from the astronomically less serious sympathizing of foreign clubs mentioned before. And that says nothing about my allowing them other things at all. I'm sure I would be way more allowing than most other parents. It's just that with teams, if I had a kid, it's Djurgården or nothing. I don't see any other thing happening. I'm fully aware of it happening, but I think the identity-type of supporter is a more modern phenomenon and for every generation it becomes less likely that their kid will have another team but their parents. In the 50's people would applaud both teams scoring during a game...

Your last sentence is interesting and something I've thought about also. It's weird that people will claim to have a club without being interested in sports. It's like claiming to be a fan of a band and not knowing any of their songs.

In most leagues I have a team or two I prefer over the others. I find it pointless to watch a football game without preferring one side to win over the other. My preferences change depending on the players and coaches a team has or depending on something more shallow like the team's stadium, crest or kits. When I was a kid I really liked AC Milan and Arsenal, per example. And in Germany I've always had a thing for Bayer Leverkusen, and even had a pretty fun FM 2011 save with them.

I'd say Bundesliga and Serie A are the two leagues with the biggest number of clubs I can empathise with. The EPL might be the best in the world overall, but so many clubs are losing their identity being acquired by American, Arab and Russian billionaires. I can't really look at modern day Manchester City and Tottenham and find them as "romantic" as they were a decade ago or so, per example.

I haven't really watched many foreign football league matches in the last couple of years, so can't say I "follow" any foreign side at the moment. All I can say is that, in UEFA competitions I ALWAYS side with the "small countries'" teams. I loved to see Sparta Prague reaching the later stages of the Europa League last season, just like I loved seeing APOEL in the 2011/2011 CL QFs and Genk in last season's CL Last 16.

Clubs like Panathinaikos, AC Sparta Prague, Crvena Zvezda, Rosenborg and Dynamo Kiev will always remind me of my childhood. I'll never wish a defeat on these sides unless they face Benfica!


My mom is always saying "football fans are way worse today than they were back in my day". Then again, hooliganism was WAY worse in the 70s-80s. Football has tried to clean up up hooliganism in the last 20 years.

All of my family members to this day support/have supported Benfica, me included. I wasn't "forced". I just assimilated. maybe it's in our DNA lol. The only person in my family who doesn't support Benfica is my father, but that's because he doesn't care about football at all. People are always surprised when I tell this "what, how can your father not like football?! haha

Yes, and you know what annoys me? People who throughout the year will give you shit for liking football "oh it's bread and circus. think of the country's situation!" but then their team wins a derby or the league and suddenly they care about ti again and try to talk to you about football as if they know anything about it. And you'll also see people like that crying when Portugal loses in the Euro or the World Cup. Please. You either like or don't like football. This whole hipster/pseudo-intellectual "only dumb and uneducated people watch football(and sports in general, I guess) DERP!" is really annoying. You're not any smarter or more educated for not liking football. Saying that only makes you a pretentious douchebag. People like this make it harder for people who don't like football/sports but aren't militant about it.

I think sympathizing with the underdog, except when ones own club or its rivals are involved, comes natural for most people. Nothing more boring than the same big clubs winning all the time, like when Real Madrid beat Atletico in two CL finals within a few years.

And about national teams, it's fun that I hardly care about those at all. So during big tournaments, people who usually don't care about football are jumping up and down for a month or so while I just watch out of interest for the sport rather than out of support (except for the underdog thing or some other factor causing some sort of sympathy). In fact, I consider the Swedish national team to be a collection of players who's more associated with clubs that are opponents of my club, causing me to dislike the team instead of supporting them. Unless there are people associated with my club involved in it, which there isn't currently since Andreas Isaksson and Kim Källström have retired from the national team.

Yes, everyone loves the underdog.

Ah international football really isn't that exciting nowadays. The money is mostly in club football, after all. I dislike international breaks, personally and don't even bother watching qualifiers and let alone friendlies. I won't deny I was happy with Portugal winning the Euro but Benfica winning the league has always made me happier. I guess it's because we can represent our country/nationality on a daily basis in so many forms while a sports club gives you more of a sense of a personal identity, thus our team winning makes us feel more exclusive.

One thing me and others really disliked about Portugal's NT was the naturalisation of players like Deco and Liedson. I have no problems with naturalisations if the players move here when he's like 10 or if he is born here even if his parents are not Portuguese. Deco and Liedson only joined Portugal because they didn't get the chance to play for Brazil. They're mercenaries. Liedson's case was ridiculous since he was already in his 30s or close to it when he got naturalised.

Things get mixed up. In the Liverpool case it is the legacy. Many fans of English football in Sweden became fans during a time when the only available way to watch it was through a tv-show called Tipsextra (aired from from 1969 to 1995). Whichever game was shown, and whichever club was big during those days gained a big following among Swedish fans. And Liverpool was a great club during some of those years.

In the case of Chelsea its not so much the legacy as recent success. Most Chelsea supporters in Sweden tend to be first generation and quite young. With Liverpool it can rather be second or third generation supporters since they laid their Swedish fanbase foundation way earlier than Chelsea did. Manchester City even more so. Not to speak of PSG in the French league. The only ones supporting them are probably children/early teenagers and it is only based on Zlatan Ibrahimovic going to the club 4-5 years ago.



Ok, after reading this post in full I know you're just out to provoke. I will leave you to it. I'm not interested in taking part of shit throwing between clubs based on stereotypical characterization of the clubs in question.

I live within walking distance of the Juventus Stadium, and I have been in there a grand total of two times throughout my entire life - tells you something about how dedicated I am