Well yeah, except there are other major sports with long boring sequences.
Come to think of it, those other sports at least have plenty of breaks to go get beer, offload beer etc. Could soccer’s paucity of breaks contribute to pent-up rage?
No, I know nothing at all about Argentinian soccer. And yet I feel entirely confident in stating that Boca’s OWNERS aren’t working class, so I don’t know why you’d bring that up. It’s not something that’s necessarily talked about in the media a whole lot, but I guarantee that everyone in Chicago and New York, whether they follow the sport or not,knows which of their baseball teams is for the posh crowd and which is the working man’s team. Granted that those reputations correspond only very vaguely to the reality, which is that both teams draw support from all classes. If there really is a class difference between Boca and RJ fans, that could certainly explain the ferocity of the rivalry. But the fact that Boca can afford to be competitive on the field tells me they must have some wealthy supporters.
…and all those points are totally well taken; I should have been clearer earlier in saying that BR/RP is basically touted a bit more as a rick man’s/poor man’s clash than the vast majority of sports franchise rivalries are (or “derbies”, whatever the sport might be).
A relief to see Chelsea secure a Champions League position for next year, and then this week they have a Europa semi against Frankfurt. Nice (but not earth-shattering) to secure third epl spot if the Blues can win their final match in Leicester.
In Barcelona that was the original division, but since Barça rebranded itself as the independentist club it’s been one of “indepes” vs “españoles”. Note that “the other team” actually has Español or Espanyol in the name (the spelling varies b/w Spanish and Catalan, the pronunciation is different only for specific dialects of Catalan).
In Seville the division between Betis and Seville corresponds to the traditional division between both sides of the river: upon meeting for the first time, people from Seville quickly ask each other any of multiple questions which boil down to “Seville or Triana”. There are economic, social and cultural differences between Left Side and Right Side, Triana and Seville. It doesn’t quite get to be between Roma and Payo (non-Roma) because neither do the two areas themselves. The same division repeats in anything you care to name, to the extent of people being “of the Macarena” (the image of Our Lady of Hope who presides the Cathedral of Seville) or “of the Trianera” (the image of Our Lady of Hope who presides the Hermit of Triana).
You seem to be assuming ownership similar to that of American sports teams. I can’t find information about Boca specifically in a quick search, but a lot of soccer clubs are owned by their supporters: that’s where the “association” comes from. Being a socio gives you a season’s ticket, makes you a voting shareholder, etc.
Assuming that kind of structure and while not all of Boca’s socios will be working class (their former chairmen include among others the current President of Argentina), it’s perfectly possible that the majority are.
The Green Bay Packers of the NFL are a bit like that. They’re unique among major US professional sports teams.
Baseball is the least violent of the four major professional sports in the U.S., and it doesn’t have a problem with fan violence.
Tennis is a big sport and has almost zero problems with fan violence.
Alcohol contributes to violence. There are more fights when it’s easy for fans to get drunk and stay drunk. Fights used to be more common at baseball games, but then they took measures to keep people from getting sloshed, such as not selling beer in the stands, limiting the number of drinks one can buy at a time, and disallowing people from bringing in cans and bottles. It helped. There are fewer fights than there used to be at MLB games.
Rivalry also contributes to violence. Back when the Giants played at Candlestick Park, there were always fights in the stands when they played the Dodgers.
General social mores probably also have something to do with it. England had soccer hooligans when the country had a lot of disaffected, angry young men. Those days are gone, and soccer hooliganism is gone with them.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of soccer teams derived from old club teams that were local to a specific part of a city. This is especially true in the UK, where there’s a very developed and very granular league system- for example, there are 13(!) professional soccer teams in London, and I suspect that there’s a lot of local pride and identity wrapped up with say… living in Lewisham and following Millwall FC, and their neighbors in Rotherhithe support Fisher F.C.
But I agree that it’s more social norms and mores; we just haven’t had that level of hostility in the US, regardless of rivalry, social class, etc. even at high school sporting events, where you’d think tensions would be highest, since they’re intensely local, and as a result, reflect the differences in society even more starkly than something as generic as our pro sports teams.
Well, if there isn’t violence in Barcelona after today’s result, there oughta be!
They’re getting a taste of what they did to Paris St-Germain back in the day.
Today’s Champions League result is fucking awesome!
Go Reds!
I was resigned, after the first leg, to that being Liverpool’s end of the road. I was actually saying, somewhat sarcastically, to a friend of mine a few days ago, “Well, the only way they win the draw is a 4-0 victory in the second leg. Wouldn’t that be awesome. Ha ha!” I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell of such a result.
One more derail - you gotta hand it to Barca for their consistency in dropping 3-goal Champions League advantages (to Roma last year).
Maybe not that unique; doesn’t that exact ethnoreligious divide also exist between Hibernian (Irish, immigrant, Catholic) and Hearts of Midlothian (nativist, Unionist, Protestant), in Edinburgh? But Hearts-Hibs is not nearly as notorious as Rangers-Celtic. Why? Either Hearts and Hibs fans are less violent (not the impression you get reading Irving Welsh); or their conflict just doesn’t get the coverage that the Old Firm does. Scottish Dopers want to weigh in?
Oh, this again. Soccer and gridiron can both be called “football” in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reason, that gorillas and chimpanzees can both be called “apes”.
No, it isn’t.
British hooligans had the most publicity in the 70s/80s, which probably has as much to do with a free press as much as anything. You didn’t get to see much behind the iron curtain in those days.
There are hooligan elements in many countries - and it’s true that British fans often get picked on during international competitions by locals looking for a fight. But they are less likely to be the ones that start it these days.
One of my favorite soccer authors, Paul Gardner, once wrote that he believes it does (although I think he framed it more around the term “passion” rather than “violence”) because of the low-scoring nature of the sport where “the scoring of a goal, the one goal that could decide the game, means the joyful, explosive release of dammed-up hopes for one group of fans, utter despair for the other.” (the end of Italy vs. Germany 2006 comes to mind when I read/recall that)
As mhendo pointed out:
As an interesting bit that shows how the sport is not likely to be the issue, in the 1960’s football (yes, the American sport.) in Mexico was very popular at the universities, and the rivalry, other unrests and heavy hand of the authorities back then, generated riots and then a massacre.
I became aware of that in the 1970’s via a Mexican political comic; they pointed out that, back then, there were opinions in the Mexican press that blamed the violence on American football as it was seen by several then as a very violent sport that incited the same. So, besides the government heavy hand, the blame was conveniently passed to the sport and it lost a lot of popularity in Mexico.
The Edinburgh divide is probably not as bad as the Glasgow one but it does exist, and yes, Hibs are as among the most violent in Scotland.