As my user name might well indicate to some, I am an Aston Villa fan.
American sports are badly set up for this, because there aren’t different leagues in the same way. But most soccer fans I know have teams in other countries’ leagues they back.
I was wondering amongst the soccer supporting Dopers what these allegiances were, and if you are in any way influenced by traditional links between your number one club and other teams - I always remember seeing Manchester Utd/Celtic scarves, for example.
This was just brought on by the fact I just purchased an FC Barcelona shirt. The other clubs I would say I follow are Rangers and Inter Milan. I never noticed a particularly strong Villa link with any of these…
1: Malmö FF (in Sweden)
2. Man United
3: Barcelona
4: FC Milan
5: Bayern München
No traditional links, that I’m aware of. Just a hodgepodge of local loyalties (I used to live close to Malmö) and what teams dad and grandpa went for (the others). I’ve seen the most of Man U, which is why they’re second and so on.
There are obvious links between my favorite club Aberdeen and Manchester United but I am not a MUFC fan. I’m not sure that many Aberdeen supporters are.
Honestly I don’t follow other soccer leagues that much. I might be interested in a team for a while when it’s doing very well or very badly (so, for example, Hull or my ex-brother-in-law’s team Bournemouth) but otherwise no. I couldn’t even name a player on each of the pro soccer teams here in the US.
I dunno, most American sports fans I know have a secondary team they root for in the other league/conference. As a Giants fan, my secondary fandom is to the Jets. The connection to the Giants is simple: they both play in the same stadium, and are in fact jointly building a new one.
American college football might also be a good example. The teams in the major conferences don’t play each other on a regular basis. So, most teams from other conferences aren’t rivals.
For example, in the ACC my team is Florida State (where I went to college). In the Big Ten, Ohio State. Pac Ten is Arizona State. The SEC is difficult, but I’d say Mississippi State, although I follow several SEC teams since they dominate national tv coverage. I don’t really like any team in the Big 12.
I know a lot of people who have two teams in the same league, my coworkers were bemoaning it just yesterday.
(Atlético (de Madrid) and Real Madrid are from the same town, traditionally linked to different economic classes and different politics, and bitter rivals)
I would have offered him a lawn, but since he wouldn’t have understood, I merely pointed out that my brother (32yo like the speaker) inherited two teams and supports both, but when push comes to shove he’ll support Osasuna over Barça any time (Osasuna because we’re from Navarra and we “inherited” it from Daddy’s side, Barça because he absorbed it from our Barcelona cousins and aunt - but not from Grandpa, who hates Barça). Plus it’s pretty stupid that kids are expected to support the same team as Daddy did… why shouldn’t they be able to choose a favourite team, rather than get it shoved down their throat?
I know many Osasuna supporters who sort’a-support Mallorca, also Spanish league, because we have the same uniforms. A friend once remarked that he’s got problems during Mallorca-Osasuna matches because in those the visitor has to wear their second uniform, so the team he instinctively wants to root for (the one in “his” colors) is “the other team”.
And of course, European competitions mean that if you like, say, Man U and Barça, you can have the same conflict as if you like Osasuna and Barça, just less frequently.
It’s different with soccer though. American football is such a small sport, number of teams wise, you get a major clash of loyalties on a much more regular basis. There are other premier league teams I have a soft spot for, but I am Villa through and through. The only time I could EVER root agains them is if a loss for Villa in the last game of the season would lead to Birmingham City being relegated. In that case, I fully expect the team to be blasting in own goals all over the place.
Not much, though if Villa played Barca every four years, I would be a happy man indeed, because it would mean that Villa qualified for the Champions League that often.
It just seems odd to me given that there are so few teams out there. It’s even odder to me having grown up in the UK that a person would have as their second team the local rival team. That is completely different to what I am used to.
My main allegiance is to Arsenal. I don’t have any second teams in England (although I have a soft spot for a few of Arsenal’s rivals’ rivals, e.g. Manchester City).
My second team would have to be Fiorentina in Serie A.
I kind of follow Racing Santander in La Liga, but only out of a vague sentimentality–one side of my family has ancestry in Santander.
There are no connections between any of these three sides.
Additionally, I’m not aware of any traditional second team for Arsenal supporters (unless you count our “special” relationship with Beveren).
In Holland I will always support Feyenoord (if anybody knows the dutch table, please don’t laugh it is already painful as it is) and the ADO, because of where I live. After that I always sort of support the ‘smaller’ teams that challenge Ajax and PSV (AZ, Twente [even with the clown as coach], Heerenveen, NAC, Groningen)
In other leagues it generally boils down to supporting teams that have dutchmen in their teams. Although I must say I seem to have a preference for Arsenal and Liverpool over Man U and Chelsea (even when there were dutchmen at Chelsea and none at Liverpool). The most difficult for me is the spanish league, where I used to be supporter of Barcalona (for as long as I remember) but given there are 5(!) dutchmen playing at real, I am sort of starting to change my mind. So to sum up, I’ma bit opportunistic.