Just like Log-isch, I was pretty happy last Wednesday. PSV had beaten Tottenham Hotspurs after penalties in a bad but exciting UEFA-Cup match. While my Dutch football heart is primarily with MVV, and secondly with Feyenoord, I do support any Dutch team for European matches. Even 020.
From the Log-isch blog post, I learned that in Italy this is not common. The fans of one team will absolutely not support the other Italian teams in international matches. They even have a word for this: gufare, hoping the worst for a team, supporting against a team. Even though I don’t do gufare, I do like the word. Gufare. Pretty.
The Brann Bergen championship last year got celebrated as if Brann suddenly was their one and only love.
I found another beautiful and even related word in the Februari edition of Voetbal Magazine. Bortelaget. When you go to a Norwegian football match, you may find Bortelaget fans. There even is a fan club, the Fanklubben Heia Bortelaget. But Bortelaget is not a team. Not a single team at least. The Norwegian word means visitors. The fan club was started by football lovers who got so fed up with the Rosenborg dominance in the Norwegian league (fourteen consecutive national titles!), that they started to support any other team that played Rosenborg. Every home match of Rosenborg has Bortelaget fans in the stadium cheering for the visiting team, and the Brann Bergen championship last year got celebrated as if Brann suddenly was their one and only love.
Log-isch concluded that in the Netherlands there is no real gufare. But if PSV — and the other teams, it would be unfair to just blaim PSV — continues their national dominance, I do foresee a Dutch Bortelaget: F.C. Gasten, based in Eindhoven.
Sander,
Leuk verhaal! En een mooie toevoeging! Je kon natuurlijk al raden dat ik vanavond FC Gasten een heeeeeel warm hart toedraag.
Groetjes, Log-isch
Hey thx. Ja, FC Gasten heeft het weer zwaar dit jaar. Laten we dan ons geld maar zetten op deelname aan de playoffs voor MVV, dat zou ook een hele prestatie zijn…!