Thursday 14 April 2011

102. Football Spirit

Ideals/Personal
It's burning! It's your favourite team/club winning! It's a goal!

It's footballllllll. In the US, they call it soccerrrrrrr.

This post is an ideal concept conceived as perceived by me in view of the current style of supporting-your-"(favourite)"-football-team/club.

A fellow football sports fan/supporter once talked about something similar to what I intended to write on here. He talked about why certain people support or become fan of certain football clubs - one of the critical reason is seeing your favourite player playing in it. Fair enough, a lot of us football lovers have some kind of heroes in the game to look forward to in watching the games.

Here in this footballing post, supporter is approximately equivalent to fan. Fan is defined here as someone more loud and hardcore as compared to being a supporter who merely supports the sports and the games. I, myself is a football and an Arsenal supporter (slightly fan). I enjoy any football games but only reserved time mostly to watch my favourite club play. I love the footballing spirit. I genuinely find footballing is a great sports activity and a team-based game altogether.

Tell me what you know about footballing when you shout, "MANU ROCKS! CHELSHIT GO TO HELL!". Nah, don't tell me about histories or how the ball came into play.

And corruption spoils the game totally. Especially the spirit. People with money and power to manipulate games really put the game in the limelight of disgrace and disappointment. I believe most football players hate game fixing They may lost all the games they play in their life but buying your way up the podium is just not football. You may as well go to the casino and gamble or fix your way through to earn cold hard cash.

So do tell me about how the teams play strategies or how the player play the ball the next time you shout, "ARSENAL FOR THE WIN!". There must be a reason why they put up the banner, "Giggs has been tearing you apart since $%^&*". Sorry, fellow Arsenal fans I support football totally so any team which plays well I'd like to watch and savour.

Let me brief you on the types/styles of fans in my opinion generically. It's typically EPL teams or Barcelona.

(not in any order of atrocity)
1. Die-hard fans good version - These are the fans who support fully their favourite team since whatsoever age for whatsoever reason. They do not condemn other teams. They concentrate only in their favourite team.

2. Die-hard fans bad version - Ditto the first sentence of no. 1 description. They condemn the other teams because they only love their favourite team. They only support the other team when that team is playing to bring down an opponent team which is a major threat to their favourite team in the standing.

3. Bus-thirds - So-called fans who only expressed their support to show that they are supporting the correct team which is usually the team which wins a lot. Who does not really watch football. Non-sensical actually, omit this but situation exists.

4. Common bus-thirds - Fans who picked the best team which is usually the team which wins a lot - ok kudos for knowing the history and so you picked an all-time winner team. And watch not much of football. Reason slightly similar to no.3 which intention is to be "correct" in choosing a favourite team.

5. Footballer fans - This is rather a subcategory for no.1 and no.2. These fans they play football. They know football. They enjoy football. Their reason in choosing their favourite team depends on the no.1 or no.2 category they fall in.

6. Non-football fans - This accompanies no.5. They do not play football. They may or not know about football. But they enjoy football, because this falls under either no.1 or no.2 ~diehard.

7. Neutral creeps - They might still be analysing on which team to pick and make it their favourite. If not, then they are just enjoying the game. Good thing these people do not make a fuss when watching. Everything looks normal or cool if there is a goal.

8. Neutral creeps version 2 - They analysed and they picked the team which they think plays properly or skillfully or amusing. They join in the fun of supporting spirit. Other time, they remain nonchalant.

(this categorizing and condemning of fans are based on my observation opinionatedly - come on I don't have the right to say you don't have the right to support I just think your football spirit and mine are different)

I reserve no. 9 and no. 10 to be described shortly after this brief intermission. No.9 and no.10 have good football spirit but not necessarily the best because die-hard fans hold their spirit highest among all.haha. And no.9 and no.10 are description-modified versions of no.1 and no.2 die-hard categories. I mean they could be die-hard too but their reason are defined precisely.

9. Experience-based - One might have went to watch the to-be favourite team play before. Or met any of the players before. Or just that the TV somehow seemed to show the particular team play when it is switched on. This could be due to his/her die-hard fan father or brother. So this know-nothing person picks up from there. Or by playing video games. These are also basically results of luck.

10. Player/material-based - Handsome player. Handsome coach lol. Good samaritan player. Beautiful jerseys. Amazing advertisement. ok la super skillful player. Very subjective. Definitely not of pure football spirit but surely somehow or rather, develops into it.

Hopefully that's all. ~"bola sepak - raja sukan".


About my style of supporting: I'm a combination of no.9 and no. 10. A bit of this and that from them. This is how I come to supporting Arsenal FC as I can remember. On experience-based I agree with my brother claiming that somehow we just chose that team to play in a video game. Ok respect, Winning Eleven it's a good football video game. So from there, we learn the names of the players and associate with their football matches we watch occasionally on TV.

Let me recall, there are Pires, Kanu, Wiltord, Ljungberg, Bergkamp, Seaman, Henry...a handful of great players which I can recall. Notice that these players I just mentioned are not in the club anymore.

Henry is great. And then before World Cup 2002 I heard that Zidane is great. So I became a fan of Les Bleus, the France team. This is no.10 style of football spirit.

These players are not performing anymore. At least not for Arsenal or France anymore but I still continue to support them. This has become a result of development of footballing spirit. A reasoned and seasoned one. I really respect people who tell me about how good Manchester United players play their spirit and their winning legacy and they are downright the most rightful fans of Manchester United. And because I was and still is partially a Red Devil supporter. How these people came about to support the Busby Boys are not generally important anymore. It's the spirit.


To be honest, I'm never die-hard. I just might sound like one because supporting becomes interesting and exciting during get-togethers for football watching.

ok there had been countless mentions of the word "football spirit". That is it.

Do you know who this player is? He is Jared Borgetti who plays for Mexico.


[photos taken from googling]