The only eternal love... (Last Tango, opinion)

“Football is the only form of eternal love that truly exists,” concluded, finally convinced, Luciano Di Crescenzo , a Neapolitan, prolific writer, engineer, film director, and actor. “A Milanista will never become an Interista, just as a Lazio fan will never become a Roma fan,” he maintained. “In my case, I am a Napoli fan and I will continue to support them forever, even now that they are in Serie C.” The year was 2004. Napoli had gone bankrupt and disappeared, refounded as Napoli Soccer by its current president, Aurelio De Laurentiis, and allowed to start over from the third division. At that fateful moment, Di Crescenzo understood that, even if Maradona's club never returned to Serie A, he would never be able to fall in love with another team.

That's why the growth or decline in a club's fan base can't be measured from one year to the next, but rather over the course of a decade or more. New generations are surveyed. Those who are already there, are there; they don't change.

Sooner or later, human beings can stop loving another person, abandon passions, change places or habits, but an irresistible force dictates that we cannot change clubs. We shouldn't; we would never forgive ourselves for such a sacrilegious decision. It is the most romantic, beautiful, and honest side of those of us who love football. This feeling is precisely what unites all of us fans of this game.

We were watching an interview on television with a singer who was recounting his life. “I was a fan of San Lorenzo,” he said. “I used to go see them all the time, and I knew the players through my father. Then, as a teenager, one day I went to La Bombonera and became a Boca fan.” I was perplexed. My wife, not a soccer fan herself, commented: “My God, how can a person be from one club and then move to another…?” It’s not a matter of color, but much deeper.

How could someone whose skin crawls for Barcelona one day celebrate a goal against Barcelona? Or come to love Real Madrid...? Never, not in defeat, not in pain, not in sadness, not in disappointment, can one stop loving the team with which one began one's childhood football love affair. And it's not fanaticism, not at all, nor is it a commitment one imposes on oneself, but something pure and noble that comes naturally.

Boca Juniors and Newell's Old Boys were playing a decisive match. Boca Juniors were far from the top spot, however, the duel was steeped in a curious circumstance: if Boca Juniors lost, Newell's would be on the way to the championship title (as ultimately happened); however, if Boca Juniors won, the crown could be handed to their arch-rival River Plate. Despite this, thousands of Boca Juniors fans demonstrated: they still wanted their team to win. "I don't see myself rooting for Boca to lose; I can't bear the thought, regardless of what happens with River Plate," wrote one Boca Juniors fan in a letter to the newspaper "Olé," summarizing the opinion of the majority.

Then, when Newell's was already winning 3-0 and defeat was inevitable, they openly began to sing, happily: "It seems to me that River won't be champion / It seems to me that River won't be champion / Newell's will be, Newell's will be, yes sir..."

“I never considered it a compliment to tell a player he's a great professional. I respect amateurism more,” writes Argentine coach Ángel Cappa in his book, “And Where Is Football?” A brilliant reflection that commands our complete sympathy. We're constantly asking footballers to play for the love of the shirt, above and beyond their salary! Why? Precisely because it's a supreme affection, a passion, and any activity carried out with passion is, as a rule, successful.

Why is it football that inspires such emotion? Di Crescenzo (who passed away in 2019) thought it was because of the excitement generated by its unpredictability. “Athletics is quite far from the world of fantasy. Its logic is quite simple: when two runners compete, the best will be the first to cross the finish line.” That's where it all ends. And he drew a parallel with another team sport: volleyball: “Here, the same thing always happens: one player receives the ball and passes it to another in the center of the rectangle, who then passes it back for another to hit it into the opposing field. And it starts all over again, all the same. Football, on the other hand, offers thousands of variations, especially when we see talents like Maradona in action, whose game knew no limits.”

Before tactics, long before sportswriters and coaches, certainly before television and business, the passion for football was born. It has been at the heart of the game since the beginning. The moment two sides formed to face off with a ball, there were already fans on both sides. So let us bow to the character who, along with the footballer, represents the oldest caste of this culture: the fan.

A very high-ranking official in world football, a leader of the corruption scandal that led to FIFAgate, frequently made contemptuous accusations with marked disdain: "So-and-so acts like a fan." He didn't mean what he said. He ignored the fact that there is no more transparent condition. He didn't notice that, in his intention to undermine, he was praising.

True fans (not hooligans, the pus of this passion) don't found clubs or steal from associations or confederations. Everything good a football manager does is because of the fan inside. The rest is perpetrated by the contaminated individual, the unscrupulous subject within.

It has been written thousands of times that a human being changes profession, newspaper (which isn't easy), wife, religion, country, and even sex. There are those who seek to change the color of their skin, bleaching it. What doesn't change is their football club. That goes with them to the other world. It hasn't been said, however, that the secret lies in the fact that football is a love of asbestos, stainless, unbreakable, and unfading. It retains its youth, freshness, and ardor for a lifetime. It's something neither the woman nor the newspaper nor the country can compete with. What would the world be like if all human loves had the strength and loyalty of a fan's love...? Better, without a doubt.

Naturally, fans utter outrageous football insults. Some go to the stadium to hurl insults, others understand very little. But it's absolutely logical: they're consumers, they buy the product and drink or eat it, even though they don't know for sure what it's made of or how. On the other hand, it doesn't do them much good to know. They're the only segment that isn't consulted at all. No one asks them if they agree with the price of tickets, the coach they hired (with their own money), the number nine who arrived as a reinforcement, or the match schedule. Members of any club who want a change in their institution have two options: buy shares in the case of private clubs, or form a group and win elections in a civil society. Too complicated.

There's always hope, of course. The hope that a true fan, that is, an open-hearted individual, will take charge of our club and allow us to dream and be happy in football. From a material perspective, the fan is the only element in football that doesn't get paid to be there: they pay.