Dortmund signing Dembele is a start, they'll need top replacements for Hummels and Gündogan, and Mkhitaryan needs to stay. Red Bull Leipzig has 50 million reserved for transfers this summer, it's a start as well. Neither will be enough to make a dent in the Bayern dominance, but it's a good step towards making the Bundesliga a bit more interesting.

I think Schalke and Wolfsburg will recover a bit (and never again sell a star player who carries the team), Gladbach and Leverkusen will stay strong but not top level strong. Dortmund is our best hope for competition in the league, Red Bull hopefully will mix things up a bit.

RB Leipzig is one of those "clubs" whose entire existence is disgusting for anyone who is against the exaggerated commercialism in modern football. It's the franchise culture seen in North American sports that has gotten its poison into the club culture. Obviously there are other aspects of football in which the same thing is going on, but in most cases it's at least limited to certain aspects rather than the entire existence of the "club" in question. Anyone who respects clubs more than corporations should hope for their failure in all ways possible. They don't make the Bundesliga more interesting but more plastic.

It's easy to focus on the negative aspects solely, and many self-proclaimed guardians of tradition in Germany do that as well. Shouldn't be forgotten though that a huge chunks of their investments are into creating a fan culture in a region starved for it, investing into young players, including giving scholarships to young players from very poor backgrounds who would have no chance in life otherwise, giving a perspective to young talents who would have no chance otherwise, building a solid base of football culture from the bottom up... It's not Chelsea/Man City/PSG investing in big names exclusively, the RB Leipzig plan is a hundred times more grounded in the grassroots levels of football, and the people whining about them conveniently ignore this. If you'd inform yourself a little about the actual work they do not just for the big main team but for the entirety of the "small" but important parts below - unlike the sheik/oligarch teams of the big money leagues - you could develop a bit more of a respectful view.

I used to think the same way, oh another fake Man City for the Bundesliga, but when I saw how much they do on all other levels - amateur level, promoting young players, creating a huge, solid grassroots base way beyond the "made for Champions League"-main team, I started to change my mind. They are building something real.

I dislike complete plastic clubs like PSG and Manchester City where some unknown foreigners without any soccer culture and experience invest several hundreds of millions to buy international star players for fifty million bucks like Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Kevin De Bruyne. RB Leipzig can't be compared to this. They essentially focus on young and mostly unknown talents that are often from Germany and support this country's youth system by developing potential future national squad players that we are going to be happy to have with us. In addition to this, the Eastern part of Germany didn't have a remotely successful soccer team for many years and this team is reigniting the flame with large sellout crowds that are usually behaving very well. Manchester already has an amazing club and doesn't need another one and in France it was fun to see that at least soccer wasn't revolving around Paris but around Lyon or Marseille while basically everything else in this country is already heavily centralized and focused on Paris. If you prefer to watch a fourth division game between two so-called traditional clubs in some sinister Eastern smalltown where neo nazi fans are punching one another instead of watching peaceful high quality soccer of a successful team in a more attractive city, it's up to you. RB Leipzig is giving a better image to usual Eastern fan traditions of hooliganism and racism. In addition to this, I would always prefer an attractive game between Hoffenheim and Leipzig over a faceless match between Fortuna Koln and Preussen Munster in some lower division. RB Leipzig will add to the quality of the Bundesliga and shake things up a little bit which can't be bad after four consecutive league titles for the same team.

Actually I hope this transfer window won't be another disaster for Hoffenheim, they messed up almost Hannover-style badly the last one. Selling Firmino was probably not up to them - same with Wolfsburg and De Bruyne - but if something like that happens you don't sit on the money but find seriously worthy replacements. Not fucking Kevin Kuranyi. Just look at Dortmund, they used their Götze money to get Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan, and each can now play Götze against the wall individually - that's how you compensate the loss of a star player. Not to mention that Hoffenheim completely broke itself apart by losing Modeste, Schipplock and Salihovic along with Firmino, all the players who basically carried the team's offense (aside from Volland). And got almost nothing in terms of a worthy replacement. If they make some better decisions this transfer windows, they might throw in some decent weight as well.

Other than that I can make no predictions for next season. I think Augsburg will probably completely fall apart and lose their Bundesliga spot in the end. Werder and Hamburg will continue the slapstick. Ingolstadt and Darmstadt will be hard to predict, I think a lot of the former's success came from their coach who is presumably going to Leipzig, and I don't know if the latter can keep up their energy. Not usually caring for them, I do hope Freiburg can reward themselves for the killer season they played and make a nice showing in the Bundesliga next season. Köln, Hertha and Mainz will probably remain in midfield, but one of them could become a surprise team. Only ones I haven't mentioned yet are Frankfurt and Nürnberg, that remains to be decided, looking forward to the playoffs!

RB Leipzig was formed through a Red Bull guy choosing the team called SSV Markranstädt, changed the name, the team colours and the emblem to always make you think of the corporation Red Bull. Before that, they had tried several other clubs in very various regions in Germany, with cities like Hamburg in the north, Düsseldorf in the west and Munich in the south.

It's as revoltingly plastic as it gets. I will never defend the oligark/sheik thing either by the way, but at least there is a non-plastic history to alot of those clubs. So they're not 100% plastic or have their very existence made of plastic. And when the oligark or whatever gets tired of using the club as his toy, then those clubs have a chance of recovering respect from non-plastic football lovers. What RB Leipzig stand for is what franchises in the MLS, NHL, NBA and so on stand for. That is, corporations that re-locate from different cities, change colours, emblems, names and everything. All under the banner of the same type of profit as any corporation is concerned with, while saying fuck you to history and membership influence.

Remember that both regular clubs and non-team-owning corporations also do things like help the community, youth and so on. That doesn't take away any of the fact that RB Leipzig is 100% a plastic product that has no chances of earning respect from anyone who respects and values the history of football and clubs.

Illogical conclusions in posts above of the sort "then go watch a bad fourth-division game where nazi hooligans beat up people" are plain embarrasing and deserves no further comment.

BTW, can anyone tell me what day is the Pokal final?

What I love about soccer is the sport itself with all the atmosphere, energy, intensity, speed, tactics and so on. As a neutral spectator, it doesn't matter to me if an entertaining and passionate yet fair game is played between VfL Bochum and DSC Arminia Bielefeld or between RB Leipzig and VfL Wolfsburg. From what I saw, RB Leipzig played very well, the atmosphere at their home stadium is better than in some stadiums of grown-old traditional clubs, they have a few promising talents that will enrich the first division and diverse national squads and the team has a positive impact on its region. The only thing I dislike are Hollywood teams supported by some sheikhs with budgets ten times more elevated than the average that rise and fall within a few years. RB Leipzig continuously built up something from the fifth divison to the first throughout almost a decade whereas the sheikhs simply bought already existing teams in the first division for fun and completely transformed their identities from one moment to the other by pumping hundreds of millions in them in just one summer as in the case of Manchester City. In my book, those two cases can't be compared. That's my opinion.

On the other side, if I take a look at younger soccer fans in Canada that don't always have a home team to support, I see as many teenagers faithfully supporting traditional teams like Manchester United or Real Madrid as plastic teams such as Manchester City and PSG because the only thing they see and that ultimately matters to them is the attractive soccer these teams play. Why shouldn't they cheer for new teams like RB Leipzig one day? Things are evolving and that's a natural thing whether you like that or not.

@Unity: The final will take place next Saturday, on May 21st 2016 at 8:00 PM local time.

Thanks man, I'll be watching!

Arrogant twat he may be, congratulations to Mario Gomez for the amazing career comeback as Süper Lig champion and top scorer.

If a kid chooses a team at an early age and sticks with it for the rest of his life, then I have no problem respecting him as a supporter (even though I may have something against the team in question, and even though I'm convinced that on an average the supporter who grew up in the city of his team is more likely to become more passionate about the team than those supporters who grew up away from it).
But if he picks new ones later on, then he deserves no respect as a supporter. However, the stadiums of these teams are not filled with kids. The vast majority are of course adults. And adults, picking and choosing teams based on how they play, how their chances of future success are, what players they have, or whatnot, deserves no respect as supporters.

Essentially, your view is that of a spectator or "sports fan" in very much a North American use of the phrase, who sticks with something so long as it's entertaining. Not unlike the viewer of a movie. And it's why things like re-location to a new city, changing of club emblems, colours, re-namings, commercialization, the ending of membership influence, disregarding of history, replacement of stands with seats, the accepting of fake crowd sounds in broadcasts and highlight reels, the striving for rule changes that makes it easier to score, the striving for closed leagues, etc. is often called Americanization.

Whereas my view is that of a supporter, and supporters keep the team in their heart in their heart passionately regardless of how they play, what players they have, what chance of future success they have, how many other supporters they have, how much money they have, how good or bad other supporters of the team behave or what political views they are associated with, how the atmosphere on the games is, and whatnot.


There's not one discussion about any phenomena, that involves any type of change, in which that's not applicable. Pointless out-of-argument statements.

-Modern politics are more about appearance and sound bite slogans than about substance and arguments, and I'm against that because of [...]
-Things are evolving and that's a natural thing whether you like that or not.

-Modern production in metal is over-used by labels compared to old school production, and I'm against that because of [...]
-Things are evolving and that's a natural thing whether you like that or not.

-Highly dangerous ideologies are growing in popularity in many countries, and I'm against that because of [...]
-Things are evolving and that's a natural thing whether you like that or not.

-Modern news media is more about advertising, buzz-words and gossip than about things that are important for society, and I'm against that because of [...]
-Things are evolving and that's a natural thing whether you like that or not.

That's already happening with Leicester City. They did well this season, and you can almost always guarantee that people will jump the bandwagon after this season, and they already have become Leicester City "fans". If RB Leipzing end up becoming the next Bayern Munich, their fanbase will most certainly increase in size. Also, nobody would want to cheer for Leipzig when they're kids, unless they're from Leipzigor the team was already a superclub. Who would have chose to support Leicester if they finished in a mid-table position last season, or fucking Aston Villa for next season?

Can't fail to see the big picture. If RB Leipzig beats Werder Bremen 6-0, the world is a good place. If every Bundesliga team beats Werder Bremen 6-0 and makes Werder fans cry, the world is a better place. Then they can finally go to the second division and play against Dynamo Dresden and all be beaten up by their hooligan fans.

I hate Werder out of tradition, not choosing to hate a new team as an adult. Can't respect people who randomly switch teams to hate.

^I know what you mean. Hating a team just for the hell of it is pretty stupid. It only makes sense to hate a team if they're both rivals. As an Arsenal fan, I'm supposed to hate Spurs, but I don't really feel the need to hate the opponent.

What team do you support, droneriot?

Just for the record, when I wrote "should hope for their failure in all ways possible" my exception would be when they face a team I hate for traditional rivalry reasons or if their opponent winning would in some way be a bad thing for my team, for example if a team from the same country as mine would gain significantly financially by advancing in a European tournament or whatever. Also, I don't think hate is a choice. Whereas I've often heard Americans talk about how they pick and choose teams to support, well beyond childhood. And even have things like "second team", "third team" and so on even in the same league, or chooses to support a new team if they move to a new city. I've always had the feeling that North American fanships are more like role playing than about passion.

Some of your complaints are truly bizarre. Fake crowd noise - yeah it's dumb but who gives a fuck? And you're against seats

But you also make some very interesting points. Such as rejecting rules which make it easier to score. As a hockey fan, I strongly agree that that is a wrong approach. Lots of people want to make the nets bigger. Humbug I say! That's not making the game more exciting; it's rewarding inaccurate shots.

Your most interesting point though, is criticizing closed leagues. I have often thought that allowing the NHL to monopolize the Stanley Cup - and thereby all the best talent - was a gross violation of the duties of the Cup Trustees. In the '30s, '50s and '70s, American League and World Hockey Association teams challenged for the right to play for the Stanley Cup, but the NHL fatcats rejected them. The AHL is a subordinate minor league now, and the WHA is long extinct, but in those days I don't doubt champions like the Cleveland Barons and New England Whalers could have challenged NHL winners... Things would just be so much more interesting with a Euro-style relegation/promotion system, rather than North America's franchised hierarchical one. I mean, how incredibly awesome would it have been, if some piddly-ass team like the Shreveport Mudbugs worked their way up from the (extinct) Western Pro League (essentially Division 5 in European terms), to challenge for the continent's ultimate trophy?

First of all, those things were just examples from the top of my head. There are way more points to be made on this. But to respond to the ones of your choice:


Fake crowd noise
Would you respect a metal band/label/venue/festival that put fake crowd noise in their live releases or had a live broadcast of a gig with fake crowd noise to make the event appear as something it wasn't? There's authenticity, which deserves respect. And there's plastic, which doesn't deserve respect. Supporter culture is a huge thing in Europe, Latin America and many other places. Artificially making it appear that a crowd sounds more than they do is more suitable for an MTV pop event than sports.

Seats
I wrote "replacement of stands with seats". To clarify: I'm not against seats. But when there's a culture that has both seats and sections with stands where people stand and chant, jump around and whatever, then I'm against putting seats on the stands and killing that culture. For example, England used to be known for having great atmosphere at their football stadiums. Then the stands were replaced with seats, and, along other bad changes, it caused them to now be the joke of Europe when it comes to atmosphere in most games. And that's where there's been fake crowd noises in the broadcasting, to make the viewers around the world believe there's good atmostphere. The old atmosphere in England inspired the supporter culture in many other countries which now are light-years ahead of England when it comes to atmosphere.


Exactly. Yet there are some amount of "sports fans" who just wanna see more goals and can't wait for such changes in both hockey and soccer.


Exactly. Even neutral spectators should love stories of teams from small towns climbing up the tiers and reaching the top. But in North Amerca, the franchise system prevailed and now teams can have terrible results throughout a season, finish last by a huge margin and still get to play in the same league the following season. Or until the owners decide to move the team to another city and change everything about it, with a mass of welcoming "fans" in the new city who can't wait for another place to go and sit with face-paint and a bucket of chicken and and bucket of coke while cheerleaders with fake smiles and real eating disorders dance and clap to the speakers' "let's go [team name]".

Have you ever personally assisted sports events in North America? I have been to numerous sports events in North America such as American football, ice hockey, ski and soccer events in different cities and I have never heard any fake crowd noises. In fact, the atmosphere at Bell Center during a hockey game or at TD Place during a football game is as outstanding or even better than what I have witnessed during soccer games when I was still living in Europe. The example with fake crowd noise for metal bands isn't really good. Judas Priest's ''Unleashed in the East'' (a European band, by the way) is often considered one of the greatest live records of its time, yet it's quite obvious that the crowd noise was recorded much louder than naturally and somewhat artificially sampled into the final mix. Still, the record is highly energetic, energizing and entertaining.

Concerning the culture of stands and seats, the culture of stands in arenas or stadiums is slowly dying and this can be witnessed in any sport all around the world. Even older teams have mostly replaced stands by seats. You can observe this anywhere, no matter if your team is called Schalke 04, Bayer 04 Leverkusen or RB Leipzig. Still, it's not because there are only seats that fans aren't standing. When I'm assisting a Montreal Impact game where there are almost no stands, the ultra section of several hundred fans is always standing and cheering throughout the entire game anyway, no matter what the weather is and they never ever sit down. Even small and very recently formed clubs such as the Ottawa Fury have their respectable ultra sections that are constantly standing and cheering. Of course, you can't compare the Montreal Impact with old and big teams like Borussia Dortmund and their ''yellow wall'' but the atmosphere at Saputo Stadium is as great as in a stadium of Germany's second division (maybe except for St. Pauli).

Most fans here are also rather faithful. Somebody who supports the Montreal Impact would never leave and suddenly support Toronto FC when their team sucks like it was the case two years ago or cheer for a random team in Florida. If your team is having serious debts for years, it's possible that it gets transferred to another city or has to fold instead of keeping it artificially alive by wasting hundreds of millions of dollars for nothing as in Europe. In my opinion, the North American solution is more consequent and then it's up to everyone to decide whether to support a team that is now playing thousands of kilometers away or not. Obviously, there is more like a playoff culture in North America and in those cases it's normal to continue to watch and maybe slightly support the most sympathetic of the remaining teams instead of stopping to watch the tournament when your team has bowed out. Those who are stopping to watch tournaments aren't fans of a sport but just of a team. In Germany, it's the same thing in the DFB Pokal. If my favorite team is eliminated, I will usually support an underdog and hope that it beats Bayern Munich so that they won't win every single trophy in their country. Concerning relegation, it's also a matter of infrastructures that teams aren't relegated. A lot of teams from the second division NASL have small stadiums where three to ten thousand people can assist a game (Ottawa is an exception as their stadium is much bigger because it's shared with a football team) whereas teams from the first division MLS have stadiums with around twenty-five thousand seats and sometimes even more with around sixty thousand seats in the case of Orlando. A local team with three thousand seats as in Edmonton would never fit the standards of the first division and a team like Seattle (probably the soccer team with the greatest crowd in the MLS) could never play in the second division without risking bankruptcy. You also have to understand that a lot of soccer teams have only been founded recently and are looking for a certain kind of stability to establish themselves instead of switching leagues all the time. Maybe in a few decades, a relegation system could work for soccer teams but I admit that it's more realistic that the soccer system follows the usual North American standards with draft systems and without relegation.

In the end, you have to admit that sports are mainly about entertainment for most people. That's why you choose to support your local soccer team and not your local bowling team even though the guys in the bowling team are all authentic, local sportsmen whereas there is probably not one single player from your hometown in your soccer team and that's the way it has been over the past few decades.

It also doesn't make a difference whether a team is sponsored by Red Bull, Gazprom or Qatar Airways because none of these sponsors are local, all of them have a lot of cash and they will bow out of the teams don't perform anymore. Even traditional teams aren't as traditional as you think. The name may still be the same as fifty years ago but the ideology of performance in Munich isn't different from the ideology of performance in Leipzig. If you really want to support teams supported by local sponsors no matter how they will perform, you have to root for Bayer 04 Leverkusen who have always been supported by Bayer who is also the largest employer in said town which was already the case fifty years ago and beyond. Ironically, despite its authenticity, Bayer 04 Leverkusen is often jealously criticized because they have a bigger budget than an exchangeable traditional team like Kaiserslautern.

It's ATTEND. Fucking ATTEND.

kluseba, your long post is based on several misunderstandings.

1. I said "the accepting of fake crowd sounds in broadcasts and highlight reels". Your "I have been to numerous sports events in North America [...] and I have never heard any fake crowd noises" suggest you didn't read carefully enough since you seem to think I was talking about fake noises heard at the actual event.

2. "the atmosphere at Bell Center during a hockey game or at TD Place during a football game is as outstanding or even better than what I have witnessed during soccer games when I was still living in Europe" would have been relevant if I had said that every football game in Europe has better atmosphere than every game in North America.

3. The metal example was to show a distinction between authenticity and plastic. Of course some amount of plastic doesn't necessarily remove all possibility of entertainment. But if there was a survey for metal fans and for mainstream pop fans, which group do you think would be more accepting of fake bullshit and which would highly prefer the real thing?

4. I know there used to be stands even for non-chanting part of the crowd. But I was referring to stands for people who are often called "active" or those who chants, jumps and stuff pretty much throughout the whole game. The replacement of stands with seats for others was never my concern. If you refer to the replacement of those stands I'm talking about, then your simply pointing out that this is going on in alot of places is irrelevant since me knowing that is a necessary knowledge of mine for me being against that as a trend. But also "anywhere" is way exaggerated on your behalf. There are places where the stands were removed and now is coming back, there are places where the stands could never be removed bacause of membership influence being against it, or where the supporters have enough financial power over owners (in the cases the team has a single owner in to begin with).

5. I'm not talking about being a bit sympathetic towards other teams such as underdogs when your own team is eliminated. I'm talking about having straight-out second teams that is your second team no matter what, just like your regular team is your team no matter what.

6. Your talk about stadium size is pure garbage since it's obvious that countries with promotion/relegation form their standards from the rules of the sport. In other words, if North America let the sport idea prevail and relegate the worst teams to a lower division and promote the best teams to a higher one, the standards/regulation would be one fitting for that system. Also, the fact that smaller teams, cities and so on could reach the top in sports would give them reason to higher the standards of their facilities and everything else.

7. Your statement about local players in the team is both false and irrelevant.

8. Most people in Europe, Latin America and other places don't choose their team, it's inherited from a family member (usually the father). And some amount of those who don't have that organically grows a passion for one team and sticks with it. Then there's the amount that choose based on the teams chances of success or how entertaining it would be to be a fan of that team rather than another one. The latter, especially if adult or in their teens when making the choice, will be regarded as plastic by the others. And it illustrates the entertainment vs. passion thing.

9. The "just entertainment" similar to a movie or whatever part of sports crowds is way higher in North America then in Europe, Latin America and many other places. The entertainment vs. passion difference between those places is obvious. That's not to say that the difference is a fact between every individual or every team from each group. For example I know the North American football (soccer) fans are more inspired by Europe than the North American hockey fans are. But on an average it's obvious. The difference concerning chants, jumping, away-stands with fans chanting and jumping a long way from home on a mid-season tuesday evening, fan-financed choreographies, membership influence on the clubs, etc. shows vast differences regarding entertainment vs. passion.

I "chose" my Bundesliga favourite (BVB) as an adult, but they're the reason I got into the Bundesliga as an adult at all, didn't care for it at all before. And to be fair, it was the passion and dedication of everyone involved - from the yellow wall to a certain now Liverpool manager - that drew me into it. Before that I only followed the regional league because VfB Oldenburg is part of the place that made me who I am and still for me is the best city on Earth. By the way, we were in first place in our league the whole season, set to go in the play-offs for the 3. Liga, and fucked it up like a month before the season ended. Great, now Wolfsburg II goes, who gives a fuck, certainly no one in Wolfsburg.

I agree with kluseba's last paragraph. Most big clubs today have long replaced all tradition with commerce, and the former is only existent in the wishful thinking of their supporters. When the OTB (Oldenburger Turnbund) basketball team made it into the basketball Bundesliga and was taken over by EWE and became the EWE Baskets Oldenburg, the people who supported it remained the same but everything about the team turned from authentic to plastic. That corporations like Bayern Munich (or admittedly, my BVB) retained their name when becoming a purely-for-profit corporation doesn't really change the fact that that's what they are. Tradition exists solely among the supporters, the clubs don't give a rat's ass unless it puts some coins in their pockets.

I guess I can put that down to the difference in season structures. In English soccer for instance, there's your League's regular season, the League Cup, and the FA Cup every year. Every team in the country is therefore competing for at least one championship trophy eery year, so if you were to hate every team that eliminated yours from contention for each of these, you'd end up hating absolutely everybody else pretty quick. Whereas here in the NHL, there is only "the playoffs". So even though my team hasn't won jack my whole life, I've only ever harboured hatred for three teams: Buffalo, Toronto and Pittsburgh. And I don't think that adding these hatreds over time makes them less valid than you hating Werder out of tradition.

droneriot
First of all, this was never about only big clubs or even big leagues. And no, tradition does exists in many clubs in big leagues as well. The problem brought up in this thread is about the trend going the way you're describing, but not that it's yet all about that. It's mostly places where membership influence or strong organised supporter culture is gone that it has gone really down the drains.

And for example in Sweden, there's a thing called the 51% rule, meaning that the sports club's members has to have the majority of the votes. And in the late 90's when clubs became allowed to be driven as joint-stock companies (if that's the correct English term) it was with the condition that the original club keeps the majority of the votes, in a "sports joint-stock company" type of thing, hence the name the 51% rule. Only few have become joint-stock companies, and among those who have the structure differs from each other. Some only went joint-stock company regarding one specific aspect, for example merchandise or transfers. Anyway, thanks to the 51% rule, the regular club is always in practice the ruler of the joint-stock company, which means that the members of the sports club rule it.

Is your first paragraph to be interpreted as your sympathy for Dortmund is more of a "my preference of what club to win the Bundesliga of those currently in it is Dortmund" rather than "I want Dortmund to win everything for the rest of existence no matter what happens and even if Oldenburg reaches the Bundesliga"? My impression is that Oldenburg is really the club in your heart and that you would really prefer them to become a strong power in German football even if it was at the expense of all other clubs including Dortmund.

Also I agree about the system with Wolfsburg II, Stuttgart II etc. in the lower leagues being shit. Portugal, Spain and probably a bunch of other countries have the same thing with Barcelona B, Benfica B etc. Myself and most people prefer real clubs throughout the league system and let the teams reserves play in a reserve team league or an U-21 (or whatever number) league with rules that allow for some number of players over that age to play.

Your favorite sports team isn't a fucking religion, jeez.

Until now the discussion was free from one-liners with no argument. But that's just like someone with zero understanding of how anyone can spend outrageous amonts of money, time and energy buying music, merch, rarities, tickets to gigs and festivals far away from home, or just the time spent on discovering thousands of metal bands or whatever someones interest, hobby, passion, entertainment, nerdery or whatever the specific case consists of, would say about some or even many people on this forum and tons of other people around the world.

Also, this isn't a autobiography thread. I'm describing fuckloads of people. But maybe you used a general "you". Sport supporter history has cases of suicides, tons of heart attacks, some murders, violence... Obviously not supporting any of those things, and the vast majority of passionate supporters don't. Though I wouldn't be surprised if I die from a team-related heart attack.

But most of this discussion has been about entertainment value vs. passion among supporter culture. Obviously with your North American location it's unsurprising that you show less or no understanding of the passion side.

Alot of people, especially in the more secular parts of the world, would say it's way more important than religion. Well, in the more secular countries most people maybe wouldn't acknowledge religion as a good comparison since they are more likely to have never been religious or at least with a very low intensity. However, also in very religious countries is the passion side of supporters as I have described. For example, I've mentioned Latin America several times in this discussion. But it's also the case in places like the Middle East and northern Africa.

Religion is declining, passion isn't. Alot of things suggests sports and other obsessions are maybe even replacing religions. Religiosity is getting more watered-down (anyone who thinks of objecting with bringing up terrorism and stuff misses that those are very much in the minority), and going from religious to non-religious is a growing trend in the world. And I'm sure other things that brings extreme emotions and such is being channelized in other things like sports, music and whatnot. Wether it's spending tons of time and money on a team or travelling around the world to follow your favourite band on tour year after year or whatever. Probably a good thing, since all the problems of passion in many other things combined doesn't come close to those of religion. Even if some will say things like:

"your favorite sports team isn't a fucking religion, jeez"
"your favorite band isn't a fucking religion, jeez"
"your favorite music genre isn't a fucking religion, jeez"
etc.

Example of football fans in a religious country like Morocco:



No-one can seriously claim that the atmosphere on the games ruled by entertainment value (regarding quality of the players and such) and commerce is even on the same planet as the atmosphere like this.

Man I'm a Chicago Cubs fan, believe me when I say I understand the religious-type fervor around sports teams, and I'm every bit as passionate about my main teams as any fan. I cheer and go nuts and celebrate and attend games when I can afford it and all that jazz, but it's pretty retarded to confine yourself to your geography and nothing else. If I moved to Baltimore I'd still be a huge Bears fan, but it's not outrageous to enjoy watching and cheering for other teams. I hate the Cowboys. Why? I dunno, I just do, their fans are annoying, their owner is a delusional fuckwad, they tend to sign people with lots of off the field issues, they just piss me off. I also like the Steelers. Why? I dunno, I just do, they're fun to watch, they have a great history, I think Ben Roethlisberger looks like Will Farrell and that makes me laugh, there are any number of reasons somebody can like several teams or root for a team that isn't their home team when they have a great story or make a great run in the playoffs or something. It just seems like I'm seeing a bunch of words that amount to little more than trashing casual fans of what is ostensibly just a game. Tap the brakes, people liking multiple teams or not having a really strong connection to one team or the other doesn't make them less of a fan than somebody who has been following them their whole life if they're both clanking their beers together and celebrating a win or hitting their kids because they lost. Just, holy crap relax.

My favorite music, my favorite sports team, my favorite pizza topping, none of these things are religions regardless of how much money I spend on them or how much time I invest in them. They're just favorites.

You make some of the same misunderstandings that's already been dealt with on this page of the thread.

Passion is one thing. Just liking or having casual favourites is another thing. And yes, someone is a lesser fan than another if he just likes something and another has a passion for that something. Liking other teams is very common, but your not a true fan if you're just liking one team among several other teams that you like.

Also, I've never talked about watching or attending games. Of course football fans with passion for a team watch lots of other games as well, especially if their passion-team is in a low-quality league. Because most are interested in the sport. For example, when I watch the upcoming CL final, I'm gonna have the preference of Atletico Madrid winning instead of Real Madrid, for several reasons that has nothing to do with me being a fan of Atletico. My team is not a Spanish team.

And saying "relax" isn't exactly a contributing thing in any discussion on this planet, especially via text where you don't know about the level of relaxation of the other. Like I suggested in the previous post: if someone who claim to love metal and yet only keep up with the mainstream metal names like Metallica, and thinks Nothing Else Matters is the epitome of metal, talked to some of the very nerdy (in a good way) and passionate metal fans in here and saw their posts about rarities, saw the number of metal bands in their physical collection, digital collection, their number of posts discussing production, eras, merch, vocals, lyrics, cover art, gigs, festivals etc., he would simply not understand it. And I doubt you would consider it a contribution if the the mainstream person's post was of the "just relax" type.

The favourite pizza topping comparison to favourite sports team is what someone from the passion part of the sports world would use if doing a parody of a North American. Go to the two clips above on this page and tell me pizza topping or "liking" a team, or attending a venue for entertainment or quality of the athletes or whatnot could cause that kind of passionate culture.

Side-note to Americans: Not all of us non-Americans and football fans are like Dembo. How embarrassing.

Sports teams are sports teams and nothing else. I'm a supporter of different sports teams, know all their history, rosters and statistics, own their jerseys and other merchandise, watch all of their games and regularly attend many games in person even though I need to travel about three hours one-way to see a Montreal Impact game for example. Still, I'm not a fanatic. Being fanatic is always negative, no matter if it concerns your sports team, your religion, your country or anything else. That being said, there are also a lot of very intense sports fans in North America that worship their teams like a religion. I know a couple of Montreal Canadiens fans for example who are like this and it's scary because they give way too much importance to their team and see political and ideological elements in their team that simply aren't there. I don't understand why Dembo seems to have an exclusively negative prejudice of commercially driven North American sports fans versus authentic European sports fans. I have grown up in Europe and have been living in North America for almost a decade by now and apart of the fact that organisations tend to make a big event out of sports games with competitions, concerts and standing ovations for members of the Armed Forces during intermissions in North America if compared to Europe, when it comes down to the fans themselves, there isn't much of a difference between European and North American supporters in my book. That being said, it's not true that religion is declining as Dembo claims, the opposite is actually the case if you take a look at international conflicts since the end of the Cold War.

That being said, a guy who owns all Megadeth and Metallica albums but nothing more, a guy who enjoys bands such as Bring Me The Horizon, Five Finger Death Punch and Slipknot and a guy who listens to twenty-seven different genres and owns eight-hundred-twenty-two albums are all metal fans to me. Some are more intense than others but nobody is a ''lesser'' fan. I actually prefer a more moderate fan over someone who calls other fans ''posers'' and uses the term ''mallcore'' and believes he is something special.

You're providing more material for criticism with each post, aren't you?

It's not that I wholly disagree, but that's my attitude, not a matter of fact. What is fact is that local and regional communities have been so intertwined with sport culture that in some places you practically can't distinguish clearly between the two. In short, it's a matter of local and regional "identity". That isn't something unheard of in the US and Canada, obviously.

It's also not the case necessarily that "fanaticism" is bad, without exception since I don't think this passionate and "fanatical" supporter culture is always tainted with actual and mindless violent behavior for instance.

Having said that, I'm looking forward to the first European title for LFC since Istanbul (as a casual - and infinitely lesser - fan, of course). It's happening tonight

Everything you said about sports has been dealt with already, you're not providig any counter-arguments or anything of value in that discussion so I'll leave it with what's been said.

But I'll just say this about the quote: international conflicts is not the same as religion. Even if the violent minority of religious people increase (and even that may not be too clear since it can also be that the weapon technology has made the conflicts more harmful and communication technology made us aware of more conflicts around the world), it still doesn't mean that religiosity as a whole is not declining. Obviously this is not the right thread, but there are way more people leaving religion now than before, and more check the non-religious box in surveys and such. And also the religiosity gets watered-down as time goes on for the vast majority, not the terrorist minority, but for most. Fewer church-goers, fewer religion-based rules are being considered, more custom-made/self-made vague concepts of spirituality, more community-based than theological and even spiritual, etc.


How contributing.
You know something qualifies as a completely worthless shit-post when it doesn't even show whether the person who wrote it understands what he commented on.


Exactly. It should be obvious to anyone that the vast majority of people in the more passionate sports cultures are very much against violence, and rightfully so. Those into violence are the smallest category of supporters.

When I was younger sports seemed so incredibly important. Live and die by how the Blues or Cards did. Now...its just sports really. I enjoy them, spend too much money watching and attending games, and get excited and bummed depending on a game but in the end they are just some game I'm not even playing in. Blues get eliminated this round I’ll be bummed for a bit but it doesn't really impact my life in any substantial way. Same if they win the Cup. I'll get drunk, run my mouth, and be a fool for a bit but ultimately its the same.

Violence over a sporting event is nuts.

On a side note when I've been in Europe the last three years I always wanted to take in a football match but it never worked out. Maybe next time.

Good game by Sevilia. Liverpool were awkward in the second half.

I still can't believe what I saw with my own eyes.

To say they were awkward is an uderstatement of truly epic proportions. The team broke down like a motherfucking Yugo car in an American movie (and like it happens on the road here), that's what happened. Such total vanishing of the midfield, I would hardly believe it. And the panic at the back, and the overall complete shell shock after that first Sevilla goal.

While they had it all in their hands by the end of the first half. It wasn't a good game by Sevilla, it was a remarkable comeback second half while being lucky that the ref is bloody myopic and didn't award two penalties for two of the three handballs in the box. The third one was a hard call, but for fuck's sake, those two...

That doesn't detract from the total mental immaturity of the current Liverpool team. Most notably, Coutinho, Can and Moreno, and the latter was hopeless in the second half. Lovren was almost hopeless, which is a regular occurrence when he's not backed by a strong midfield and a defensive partner with whom he's in better sync. Though Kolo is blameless here.

I still can't believe what happened. That's what fighting Borrusia tooth and nail and prevailing in the end does to ya.

Oh he understood it and so did I, and I agree with him. You're being a jackass.

Was it the explanation of the 51% rule?
Was it the videos posted?
Was it the Red Bull discussion?
Was it my statement about me being against violence?

If you're gonna call someone a jackass or embarrassing after they have made several long posts in a discussion, the least you can do is provide examples or counter-arguments or something specific. Otherwise you're just looking like the things mentioned: embarassing and a jackass. Not to mention a troll who uses vague one-liner shit-posts like yours.

Either show that you're a grown-up who can provide arguments, evidence, analogies, examples etc. or shut up while you learn.

The fact that you are oblivious to your own asinine nature on this forum (that multiple people have called you out on) is your problem, not mine. Now go sit in the corner while the adults do the talking.

Another non-specific shit post = troll.

Concession accepted.

Anyone catch game 2 Warriors v Thunder last night? What was up with that weird thing on Curry's elbow?

It just looked like he took a fall and got bruised. It didn't seem to affect his game any though, which is good. I just love it, when he is like two time zones away from the basket, and will lob the ball clear across the court- and make the basket. You know, I can't do that. But the way Oklahoma City played the other night, the Thunder may have a chance in this one. I will continue to root for the Warriors though because that's the team I grew up with, and they were never very good until just a couple years ago.