Football (Soccer) Thread

[Norgy]

I think it is worth discussing how we, well, many of us, have several favourite teams.
I obviously support my local club and go to matches, but this season was an utter disaster. In a 26 game season 1 win and 1 draw and the rest losses? Yeah, it is going really well. Tier 4 next season.

Most Norwegians also have a top tier team they support. Mine's been Vålerenga, who got promoted after a wilderness year in 2nd tier.

Then we have our strange obsession with English football, rooted in the televised matches from 1968 and onwards. Everyone has a club they support, and say "we" when that club wins.
I actually know more about Nottingham Forest than the local flora and fauna here.

"What flower is that?"
"Hmmm, Stan Collymore? No, that's a Steve Hodge".

I have sympathies for other European teams like Livorno and St. Pauli because of my political leanings, and I always check the score when Hibernian plays.

It is all a bit weird, innit? That I feel a rush of joy if I see Hammarby beat Djurgården in Swedish football?

I don't really have a point to make, it is more of a stream of consciousness post about football.

[mongers]

I think it is worth discussing how we, well, many of us, have several favourite teams.
I obviously support my local club and go to matches, but this season was an utter disaster. In a 26 game season 1 win and 1 draw and the rest losses? Yeah, it is going really well. Tier 4 next season.

Most Norwegians also have a top tier team they support. Mine's been Vålerenga, who got promoted after a wilderness year in 2nd tier.

Then we have our strange obsession with English football, rooted in the televised matches from 1968 and onwards. Everyone has a club they support, and say "we" when that club wins.
I actually know more about Nottingham Forest than the local flora and fauna here.

"What flower is that?"
"Hmmm, Stan Collymore? No, that's a Steve Hodge".

I have sympathies for other European teams like Livorno and St. Pauli because of my political leanings, and I always check the score when Hibernian plays.

It is all a bit weird, innit? That I feel a rush of joy if I see Hammarby beat Djurgården in Swedish football?

I don't really have a point to make, it is more of a stream of consciousness post about football.

Well I've always had to support my local club, Southampton FC especially as my old man was going to play for them and what with them winning the FA Cup in 76 against ManU.

As a junior school kid I also supported Leeds for a while, probably because they were the hardest team going, Cloughy's Derby County being the arch-rivals at the time.

Oh and I've always had a soft spot for Liverpool, I think because of Keegan having also played for Soton and they did play some brilliant football in the 70s and 80s. More importantly so when they triumph over ManU.

[Josquius]

I think it is worth discussing how we, well, many of us, have several favourite teams.
I obviously support my local club and go to matches, but this season was an utter disaster. In a 26 game season 1 win and 1 draw and the rest losses? Yeah, it is going really well. Tier 4 next season.

Most Norwegians also have a top tier team they support. Mine's been Vålerenga, who got promoted after a wilderness year in 2nd tier.

Then we have our strange obsession with English football, rooted in the televised matches from 1968 and onwards. Everyone has a club they support, and say "we" when that club wins.
I actually know more about Nottingham Forest than the local flora and fauna here.

"What flower is that?"
"Hmmm, Stan Collymore? No, that's a Steve Hodge".

I have sympathies for other European teams like Livorno and St. Pauli because of my political leanings, and I always check the score when Hibernian plays.

It is all a bit weird, innit? That I feel a rush of joy if I see Hammarby beat Djurgården in Swedish football?

I don't really have a point to make, it is more of a stream of consciousness post about football.

I only really have Sunderland.
When I was a kid and Italian football was the only football we got on TV I liked Juventus because Vialli and Ravenelli were great, though no special love for them now.
I guess I also support non-League local teams to some extent and cheer for them? - Gateshead and South Shields are the main ones.
Also cities where I've lived in the past to a level of "Hey I wonder how they're doing this year...wait what? They've been relegated? When did that happen? 3 years ago? Wow".

Though its quite weird how my Great Grandad was Sunderland but my grandad somehow ended up Newcastle Utd and my uncles were split down the middle.

[Norgy]

I only really have Sunderland.

I really wish them back into top tier football.
Cloughie's old team, too.

mongers: Leeds?  Don't you mean Dirty Leeds?

Keegan was one of the best English players I saw as a kid.
But to quote Cloughie: "We have a fat little man on the left wing who will turn him inside out".
John Robertson was superb for about four seasons before smoking and drinking caught up with him.

[Barrister]

I think it is worth discussing how we, well, many of us, have several favourite teams.

So hardly the world's biggest soccer fan, but I do enjoy the game from time to time.  I do watch all the important Canadian national games.  Watching Canada beat Mexico in the snow right here in Edmonton was one of the most fun soccer games I've ever seen.

But favourite club teams?  I dunno.

Here in Canada they went and formed the Canadian Premiere League - but had the bad fortune to start in 2019.  Edmonton used to have a team - FC Edmonton.  FC Edmonton actually pre-dated the CPL, playing in the mostly-US based NASL, until that league folded in 2017.  FC Edmonton was something of a labour of love by ownership - but they lost money every single year, in both the NASL and CPL, and by 2022 they'd had enough and wanted out.  Nobody else stepped up to buy a money-losing soccer team so the team folded.

I suppose I should try to root for my hometown-based Valour FC (based in Winnipeg, plays in the CPL) but given that they never existed when I lived in Winnipeg it's hard to develop much of a rooting interest.

Going overseas then...

I went to Brazil in 2013, to the city of Salvador, in Bahia, and was staying with locals who were soccer fans.  While I was there there was a big rivalry game between the two teams based out of Salvador, being EC Bahia and EC Vitoria.  I decided I would cheer for Bahia based on nothing more than I liked their uniforms.  I still have a Bahia jersey in my closet - even got a replacement from my brother a couple of years ago as the first one was getting worn.

So when asked what my favourite team is I'll say Bahia just to sound worldly and knowledgeable - but I've seen exactly one game in my life, and the Brazilian league doesn't exactly get much coverage in English.

We've also had international students.  They usually bring gifts.  One girl from Valencia, Spain brought a scarf and some toques so I decided I was a Valencia fan.  But then another girl from Seville brought be a Sevilla jersey, so now I say my favourite European team is Sevilla.

But while La Liga certainly gets more coverage than the Brazilian league does, it's still not a lot, and Spanish soccer really is about the big two teams anyways.

Then as Norgy points out, the big lumbering giant of soccer is English soccer.

I've just never been able to form a rooting interest in any EPL team.  It's hard to manufacture such things out of thin air.  My father cheers for Fulham, on the somewhat-reasonable basis that for several years he ran a business called Fulham Castle Bed and Breakfast, located on Fulham Ave in Winnipeg.  It was a big brick house that, well, looked a bit like a castle built by a homesick englishman in the 1930s - complete with a faux-English pub in the basement.  But honestly I never got into Fulham, and the Fulham Castle house was not the one I grew up in.

And then there's Wrexham.

I'll admit - I got sucked in by the series.  To the point I do check on how Wrexham is doing - shockingly they seem almost set to get promoted again to the Championship if they keep it up this year.

But that's kind of embarrassing because it's the opposite of trying to seem worldly and knowledgeable like name-dropping Bahia - instead it's just following the star power of Ryan Reynolds and a successful TV show.  While the success story of Wrexham is on one hand kind of cool, really it's just based on the old story of rich foreign owners coming in and spending their way to success.

But in terms of actual soccer action that I've watched in the last few years, it would be Wrexham (other than Canadian national games that is).

[Norgy]

It is a good and reasonable choice, Beeb. It is really hard not to enjoy "Welcome to Wrexham". They've spent quite a bit on players, though.

As one of Norway's legendary club coaches said, it is a game of feelings.
And when I was in my teens watching Forest on TV and they lost, that weekend was ruined.
Walking home after my local team had lost (again) to some side I hardly knew existed wasn't exactly an upper either.

I wrote a long article about the first Norwegian player ever to play in a world cup.

His name was Werner Nilsen. And the team he represented? The United States of America in the 1930 World Cup.

Before the Great Depression, the US actually had a thriving soccer league. Or leagues, because they also had two football federations. Not unique in that way. Italy had three, I think, before Mussolini stepped in and said "Enough!".

The history of soccer is actually a really interesting one, but you have to be quite the nerd to delve into it like I have done.

It all stems from once reading about an Austrian footballer, considered one of the world's best, Mathias Sindelar being "found dead" back in 1938-39. He was known as "the man of paper" because he could slide between any defenders without them catching him. Like through a mailbox slot, I suppose.

Thing is, learning about football history also opens up for other avenues. Which is the working class team in this town, which is the upper class team, why is there such an intense rivalry between these two clubs?

And, as a final remark: When Canada went to Mexico in 1986 for the World Cup, I rooted for them. A better choice than the other side that ended with zero points: Iraq.
I think Saddam had the coach shot.

[Josephus]

So I have several teams in several leagues.

I am a Napoli fan in Serie A.
I am for all intents and purposes a Liverpool fan, although I used to be a Derby County fan growing up.
Here, I'm a Toronto FC fan.

Internationally I support England.

[Norgy]

Denmark had a killer side when I was a pre-teen. They beat Norway 5-1 at our own turf. Some of their players, Preben Elkjaer and Michael Laudrup were just insane. So I sort of supported our former overlords in the World Cup of 1986 too, and definitely was a huge fan of their Euro 1984 team.

I tend towards England when Norway isn't in a major tournament like the Euros or the World Cup (and our record there is at best sketchy), but my anglophile side has somewhat waned over the years.

[Barrister]

I tend towards England when Norway isn't in a major tournament like the Euros or the World Cup (and our record there is at best sketchy), but my anglophile side has somewhat waned over the years.

I will say if Canada is not involved internationally (and let's be honest - they usually aren't) I'm full on pulling for Ukraine.  And that was before Putin invaded - either time.

[Josquius]

Today I found out.
Chelsea once murdered an opposition goalkeeper

http://ryehillfootball.co.uk/uncategorized/jimmy-thorpe-gave-his-life-for-sunderland-afc/