One of the gospels of sports literature is that Soccer against the Enemy of Simon Kuper. It was published in 1994, the year in which the globalization of this sport began to be evident before the dispute of the United States World Popcorn. Soccer hit the ground with the modern era. With the blurring of border posts. With the progressive loss of all those social, political, religious and economic identities in favor of heterogeneous masses . In short, just what the large multinationals demand, logical heirs of the simple neighborhood clubs. The same that would begin to build their stadiums far from their people. And they appreciated the gentrification of cities. Show me the money. Kuper, who had visited 22 countries in nine months to crack vital codes and connections around the ball, showed years later that even the purest rivalries were beginning to lose their meaning.
"One fine day in 1999 I met a Celtic ultra in Glasgow who showed me that things had changed. When Celtic, a Catholic, played against his Protestant Rangers rivals, he insulted them outrageously. He had even called his second son with the name of all the Celtic players who won the 1967 European Cup. He regretted that the names of the substitutes did not fit in the birth certificate. It seemed a normal story ... If it were not because he was married with a Protestant. While his wife was recovering from childbirth in the hospital, he ran away to register the son in the civil registry and, when she found out, he kicked open a door of impotence. In other words, he concluded with a triumphant tone the father, the boy will never play in Rangers. But that man had no problem with the Protestants. The confrontation was no longer a religious matter . "
Kuper introduced that anecdote in one of the reviews of his famous book. And he used it again when journalists Jordi Brescó and Pau Riera asked him to write the foreword to their Chronic Rivalries (Panenka), a work in which the authors, with the excuse of understanding 10 of the most representative derbies in Europe (Sheffield, Istanbul , Prague, Genoa, Belfast, Glasgow, Nicosia, Hamburg, Belgrade and Stockholm), undertook their particular initiatory journey. In search of an ancient football.
"The derbies are the last antidote to the modernization of football," proclaims Brescó in conversation with EL MUNDO. "That is why we chose the parties that remind us that there are clubs that used to be not just companies, but the backbone of a community, of a society, town or neighborhood." But he also warns: "20, 30, 40 years ago, the place where you were born, or the bosom of the family where you were born, automatically led you to be a team. If you were the son of a Catholic in Glasgow, you had to be a fan of the Celtic. There was no other option. This has been diluted a lot. Maybe because that tribal identification doesn't exist anymore. Now it's like a game. I've had to be part of a team and that implies a number of things. And the day it plays show who I am, I have no qualms about putting on a costume or a mask and forget my day to day to be part of a community in a more embedded way. "
Riera intervenes: "Although the derbies have been affected by the business, they are the last resistance to that change. They combine everything that we could call the purity of football. The derbies allow us to continue believing that all is not lost ."
In Istanbul, always exaggerated, split on two continents by the Golden Horn, the Intercontinental Derby ( Kitalararasi derbi ) takes place between Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray . The first was born to give out to the neighborhood boys of the Asian district of Kadiköy. The second, generated in the shadow of the European Galata Tower, had its origin in an institute for the elites called, yes, Galatasaray. "But now there is no significant characteristic that differentiates his followers: neither his social class, nor his political vision, much less his religion," defends Brescó. Geographical delimitation with both clubs does not even serve as banners of Asia and Europe: "It would be too reductionist a vision: any sharp sentence is meaningless before two so voluminous social masses".
Nothing subtracts sports rivalry between two of the most passionate fans in football. And that, given the occasion, they have had no qualms about uniting against Erdogan's policies . The Turkish president, in fact, had to invent a club, the Basaksehir, through which Robinho or Arda Turan passed.
In Belgrade's Eternal Derby, the one that pits Partizan against the Red Star, the hobbies, despite their fierce rivalry, were always a political instrument for the system. "I was determined not to approach the Belgrade derby from the point of view of violence. But the truth is that I had no other option," Brescó writes before dissecting the rivalry between two clubs founded the same year that the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia by Tito. The Partizan paid tribute to the partisans of the Second World War. The Red Star paid tribute to the new flag.
The outlines of the Balkan wars are evident among the most radical fans of both clubs, the Grobari and the Delije, ultras groups that share the same ultra-nationalist ideology. And also past and vital references in the militias . The Serbian Voluntary Guard of Zeljko Raznatovic, later baptized on the streets as the Arkan Tigers, had no problem getting volunteers in the stands to join his paramilitary formation.
"That's where I saw more enmity and less chance of one approaching the other, despite not having a political, economic or religious background. It is also true that the percentage of ultra fans who go to the field is higher," admits Brescó. . Both clubs are public and very opaque financing, it is recalled in the book. And the ultras have never allowed their privatization. Soccer continues to be one of the best propaganda weapons of the government .
This same Wednesday, the Red Star went to the Partizan field to play the Cup semifinal. Access to the public was allowed. Nobody noticed norms of social distancing. The Belgrade derby does not allow any alienation. The party had to stop for a quarter of an hour due to the massive launch of flares.
Posted to seek the purity of derbies, the authors fix their eyes on several cases. The one in Hamburg, where the St. Pauli, a cult club, anti-fascist and anti-system, rival of a deconstructed Hamburg, fights against the contradictions of those who, at least, must resist in professional football. In your case, the German second division is already enough. Despite signing with a clothing company linked to the United States Army, Under Armor . Despite bordering the border of double standards. "It is the paradigm of a club that does not want to lose its identity, but has to give up a little to survive. And this has cost it losing fans."
Il Derby della Lanterna between Sampdoria and Genoa is perhaps the most emotional of all these confrontations. Their teams, with successes already too long past, have already given up hope of settling in the bourgeoisie. Brescó explains: "Unfortunately, in many cases the notoriety of the derbies is marked by the notoriety of their clubs. Something similar occurs in Sheffield [cradle of football and where the first derby in history was played]. Being a city that It has never enjoyed being the most outstanding in the country, there is also that kind of cooperation or respect. After all, you are working so that the city gains weight on the national scene. " The Common People Pulp, who also had nowhere else to go.
The Stockholm derby between the AIK and the Djurgardens escapes a gaze built on the topic . The stadium welcomes the emotional release of a society trapped in its dress of perfect modernity and neatness.
Post-pandemic football, for now without fans in countries like Germany or Spain, twists all mystique. This is how Brescó understands it: «The Bundesliga did not return with a derby from the Ruhr, but with a Dortmund-Schalke. And the Spanish League will not return with a Seville derby, but with a Sevilla-Betis. Derbies are nothing without the presence of the fan ». And Ditch Riera, whose camera was aimed at the heart of the fan, the raison d'être of football: "Derbies will always make sense as long as there are those who live them. No one can take away that emotion, that feeling of waiting and wanting to live them. When this stop passing, the derbies will be dead. And also football. "
In the chapter dedicated to the Prague derby between Slavia and Sparta, where the authors found that the city, now a papier-mâché tale setting, was only able to free itself from the tourist shackle in the hours leading up to the match. He uses a quote from Kafka: "Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy."
Maybe it's just that.
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