Home Teams
The convention almost universally observed is limiting one’s allegiance to a singular team in each sport of interest
A couple of years ago I wrote: “As a pragmatist it has never occurred to me that I was somehow obligated to root for the local team rather than favoring a team from somewhere else. I realize many people automatically favor their home team, but I also know many who have moved yet still follow a favorite team located where they used to live or a team long favored for other reasons.” If the concept of home team is malleable for many, the concept of how many teams one follows is far less so.
The convention almost universally observed is limiting one’s allegiance to a singular team in each sport of interest. Long times readers will know that I generally ignore sports…with the exception of European football. So I am already committed to violating the concept of home team. “My” team is in Italy’s Serie A league, making it my pragmatic home team. I am, by the way, hardly alone in doing this. I know many people who follow non-U.S. football, with most of them favoring teams in the English Premier League, a league I find of little interest — more brutal, less technical, in play. But my Italian team, although fairly successful, does not always reward my loyalty. They too often concede goals late in matches, have off days, end too many matches in a draw (0–0, 1–1, 2–2…).
So I’ve contemplated for quite a long time the ethics and propriety of following another team in another league. It wouldn’t be “my team” per se, but it would represent an alternative. Predictably, I researched this concept and found that this is not uncommon, although many do so quietly. One football columnist in The Guardian, who has a Premier league team he’d followed for many years, admits to having a backup team, which turned out by chance to be my team in Serie A. He made the point that given the emotional investment (and financial one in terms of team paraphernalia) in his regular team, it was nice to enjoy following another team without the baggage of being a true fan.
To quote him: “Properly selected, the second team can be both a source of variety and a form of compensation for the failings of the
club to which you have indefinitely, and possibly regrettably, shackled yourself.” — “The second team is also an imaginative exercise, allowing us to try on new, and probably less dysfunctional, football identities.” — “Sometimes it’s nice to appreciate a game on its own merit, free of the lengthy pre-existing narrative of optimism, disappointment and financial exploitation you share with your team.”
In the end, after researching teams in various European leagues, I ended up with…I don’t quite know how this happened…two other teams — one in La Liga (Spain) and another in Premeira Liga (Portugal). I won’t bore you with the rationale behind my selections, and I can’t say I could accurately pinpoint why anyway. Teams have personalities and qualities one is drawn to…or not. What I do get is well-played matches that I can enjoy without these alternative teams having to win. It would be nice, but not essential.
For those still with me, I have a larger point. Convention, while fine and good up to a point, can also be dictatorial. I’ve been asked why I don’t follow a team in MLS, the U.S. attempt at being relevant in football in this country. Well, to be honest, the quality of matches pales compared to European (and Latin American) leagues and teams. Football (not American “football”) is an obsession outside the U.S., and talented players are abundant, having played from a very young age. It’s nice that there’s a league in this country, but most teams play in stadiums meant for other sports, and the results are not satisfactory.
Convention, like tradition, can have two sides. One is to be included in a culturally shared experience. But the other is to be expected to conform to an experience that may not be satisfying. We live in an age in which access to the rest of the world is almost unbelievably convenient. I can sit in our family room and watch matches from Europe as easily as my neighbors watch sports events in this country. So. more choice and the ability to select what appeals to one’s tastes. What more could a pragmatist ask for.
Sports invariably raises the issue of patriotism, a topic I am extremely ambivalent about. I am troubled by the grey, ambiguous separation from nationalism — a highly toxic, irrational emotion. It’s tribalism on a large scale. Often there’s inherent intolerance just below the surface. European football is about diversity, with teams representing a mixture of nationalities, races and ethnicities. Yes, football leagues are national in scale, and the World Cup consists of national teams competing, but the players on the teams are drawn from the the teams in these national football associations, which, as noted, are diverse. There may not be many foreign-born players per team, but citizenship is not required to be a member of them. (I’m not much of a fan of national teams compared to association teams…for several reasons you won’t care about.)
I started this biog six years ago to explore all the ways pragmatism can influence life positively. It certainly has dominated mine for decades. I’m not a spiritual person. I need intellect, rationality, enlightenment, logic and information/data to guide how I live, what my values are and how to view reality. Even in play, such as football, being pragmatic enhances the experience for me. I consider pragmatists islands of sanity in a sea of human behavior…which is why I keep writing about being one. I assume those who read this blog are fellow pragmatists…more islands of sanity.
