Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Shirt Fever

Uruguayan writer Paco Espínola did not like soccer. But one afternoon in the summer of 1960, when he was scanning the radio dial for something to listen to, he chanced upon the local classic. Peñarol was routed by Nacional 4–0.

When night fell, Paco felt so depressed he decided to eat alone so as not to embitter the life of anyone else. Where did all that sadness come from? Paco was prepared to believe there was no particular reason, maybe the sheer sorrow of being mortal. Suddenly it hit him: he was sad because Peñarol had lost. He was a Peñarol fan and hadn’t known it.

How many Uruguayans were sad like him? And how many, on the other hand, were jumping with joy? Paco experienced a delayed revelation. Normally we Uruguayans belong to Nacional or to Peñarol from the day we are born. People say, for example, “I’m with Nacional.” That’s the way it has been since the beginning of the twentieth century. They say that back then the professionals of love used to attract clients by sitting in the doorways of Montevideo’s bordellos wearing nothing but the shirts of Peñarol or Nacional.

For the fanatic, pleasure comes not from your own club’s victory, but from the other’s defeat. In 1993 a Montevideo daily interviewed a group of young men who supported themselves by carrying firewood all week and enjoyed themselves by screaming for Nacional in the stadium on Sundays. One of them confessed, “For me, just the sight of a Peñarol shirt makes me sick. I want them to lose every time, even when they play against foreigners.”

It’s the same story in other divided cities. In 1988 in the final of the Copa América, Nacional beat Newell’s, one of two clubs that share the adoration of the city of Rosario, on the Argentine littoral. On that occasion the fans of the other club, Rosario Central, filled the streets of their city to celebrate the defeat of Newell’s at the hands of a foreign team.

I think it was Osvaldo Soriano who told me the story of the death of a Boca Juniors fan in Buenos Aires. That fan had spent his entire life hating the club River Plate, as was entirely appropriate, but on his deathbed he asked to be wrapped in the enemy flag. That way he could celebrate with his final breath the death of “one of them.”

If the fan belongs to a club, why not the players? Rarely will a fan accept an idol in a new venue. Changing clubs is not the same as changing workplaces, although the player is indeed a professional who earns his living by his legs. Loyalty to the uniform does not fit with modern soccer, but fans still mete out punishment for the crime of desertion. In 1989 when Brazilian player Bebeto left Flamengo for Vasco da Gama, some Flamengo fans went to Vasco da Gama matches just to boo the traitor. Threats rained down on him and the most fearful sorcerer in Rio de Janeiro put a hex on him. Bebeto suffered a rosary of injuries; he could not play without getting hurt or without guilt weighing down his legs. Things went from bad to worse until he gave up and left for Spain. Some years earlier the longtime star of the Argentine club Racing, Roberto Perfumo, moved over to River Plate. His loyal fans gave him one of the longest and loudest catcalls in history. “I realized how much they loved me,” Perfumo said.

Nostalgic for the faithful old days, fans also are loath to accept the calculations of profitability that often determine managers’ decisions, now that every club has been obliged to become a factory for producing extravaganzas. When business is not going well, red ink cries out for sacrificing some of the company’s assets. A gigantic Carrefour supermarket now sits on the ruins of San Lorenzo’s stadium in Buenos Aires. When the stadium was demolished in the middle of 1983, weeping fans carried off fistfuls of dirt in their pockets.

The club is the only identity card fans believe in. And in many cases the shirt, the anthem, and the flag embody deeply felt traditions that may find expression on the playing field but spring from the depths of a community’s history. For Catalonians, the Barcelona team is more than a club; it is a symbol of their long struggle for national affirmation against the central power in Madrid. Since 1919 no foreigners and no non-Basque Spaniards have played for Athlétic in Bilbao. A bastion of Basque pride, Athlétic takes only Basque players into its ranks, and they are nearly always players from their own farm teams. During the long dictatorship of Franco, two stadiums, Camp Nou in Barcelona and San Mames in Bilbao, were sanctuaries for outlawed nationalist sentiment. There, Catalonians and Basques could shout and sing in their own languages and wave their outlawed flags. The first time the Basque standard was raised without provoking a beating from the police was in a soccer stadium. A year after Franco’s death, the players of Athlétic and Real Sociedad carried the flag onto the field.

Yugoslavia’s war of disintegration, which so upset the entire world, began on the soccer field before it took to the battlefield. The ancient resentment between Serbs and Croats came to the surface every time clubs from Belgrade and Zagreb faced each other. Fans revealed their deep passions and dug up flags and chants from the past to use as battle-axes.