Soccer Fans

The World Cup is very soon upon us.  Also upon US. As in USA. For the first time ever.  And Philly is one of the chosen cities.

You hear tell about the rabidity of the international soccer fan.

But I think, they don’t know Philly.  Philly’s rabid fan base ranks in a category all its own.  Surely it outclasses anything international soccer fans have to offer.

Who doesn’t know about throwing snowballs at Santa at an Eagles game? Or the period of time where they put a judge within the bowels of the football stadium to adjudicate the overly rambunctious Eagles fans?   And of course what other city has to grease the poles to keep the fans from climbing them when their team wins any post season game?

This is what I thought.  Until I went to a soccer game in Rome.

Those soccer fans make the Philly fans look like Quakers at a peace camp singing kumbaya.

The year was 2013.  Ernie, Joey, and our dear friend Sissy took a trip to see Amy who had just finished her semester in Rome. 

Ernie discovered that team Roma would be playing at home while we were there. He said we had to go and that it would be an experience of a lifetime.

I was not, and am still not, what you would call a soccer fan.  I know it involves a ball that you kick with your feet and you can use all your body parts, except your hands, to move and control the ball.  There’s a really long and wide field with lots of running back and forth.  Not much scoring happens.  In fact, I’d say there’s a lot of effort for not a lot of return.  It’s a really big deal when your team scores even just one goal. And if neither team scores, the score is not zero zero. it’s nil nil.

There are cards that are flashed for penalties.  Different colored ones.  I think if you get a red card that one is bad.

They keep track of playing time in reverse.  Instead of starting at 90 minutes and counting down to zero, they start at zero and count up to 90.  And then there’s some weird thing they do with adding time.  You think once you hit 90 minutes the game is over.  But no.  They add some more time in. Apparently they do not stop the clock for penalties and so they have to add that time back in. This could be cause for some serious nail biting, I imagine, if it’s your team that’s winning.  At that point you just want the game to be over already.

The players are hot though.  Seriously.  Have you ever seen an unattractive soccer player?

All this to say (aside from the soccer players being hot), I was really not inclined to spend my precious time in Italy at a soccer game.  But everyone was really into the idea, so I went along.

Our first challenge was trying to find the train that would take us to the stadium.

We were, mistakenly, under the impression that Amy, having studied Italian for a few semesters and having lived in Rome for 4 months, would be able to navigate any language barriers we might encounter.

That left us all trying to ask various and sundry people, (at one point, I looked over to see Ernie pantomiming kicking a ball with his foot), which train station and which train would get us to the futbol stadium.

We finally succeeded in that effort, but it used up a lot of our time.

When we got there, the game had just gotten underway, though we weren’t the only stragglers.

I saw piles of newspapers outside the stadium and people picking them up on their way in.  None of us had any idea what that was all about.

We entered the stadium to total and complete pandemonium.

No one was sitting.  They were all standing.

There were no ushers.  No one to tell us where our seats were or how to get to them.

It was wall to wall people, including the aisles that were the walkways, and it was almost impossible to make your way through the crowd.

There was roaring. There was singing.  One person was waving a gigantic flag and leading the chanting and singing, like a conductor of an orchestra.

The noise was deafening.  We couldn’t speak to each other.  We could only use hand and body motions to try and communicate.

I couldn’t imagine what the crowd would be like when they actually would score a goal.

We finally figured out where our seats were and fought our way through the crowd to get to them.

That’s when I realized what the newspapers were for.

The seats were covered in bird poop.

People used the newspapers to cover the seats.

The seats they weren’t sitting in anyway.  The ones they were all standing on. Guess they didn’t want to get their Guccis dirty.

We soon noticed that there was a clear division between the home and away fans. 

This is because they cannot risk the fervor of the fans getting the best of them. They have years of experience that led to this segregation of the fans.

Google Stadio Olimpico and this is what it says:

“The Stadio Olimpico in Rome has heavy physical and plexiglass barriers to separate the away team fans from the home ones.

The away fans are isolated in a completely dedicated, heavily policed section of the stadium.”

Not relying solely on the plexiglass and barriers, they also create a buffer zone.  They leave rows and seats adjacent to the away team’s section.

The away fans are so discriminated against, they do not even sell them beer.  No beer for them.  Only the home team fans.

Lastly, they even have what they call Internal Curva Barriers.  These are barriers and plexiglass dividing the home ends to contain the most rabid home fans.  That was the section where our seats were.

It was at this game where I discovered I am an HSP.  Highly Sensitive Person. 

Google describes it as “A heightened sensitivity that occurs when the brain and central nervous system take in and process more environmental and emotional data than usual.” And, “when someone with these traits takes in more than their brain can sort through, they experience sensory overload. This can result in extreme physical or emotional discomfort, which may manifest as exhaustion, irritability, anxiety, or a need to isolate in a quiet space.”

I didn’t know any of this then.  I only knew I needed to get out of there.  I spoke directly into Ernie’s ear so he could hear me say that I was going to stand in the concourse for a bit.

On my way there, I bought a beer and then stood in the blissful quiet of the concourse, recalibrating myself.

Eventually, the rest of the family came to retrieve me and we made our way back to where we were staying.

No physical violence broke out while we were there.  But just seeing the degree of safety and security measures they put in place in the stadium tells you this is far above throwing snow balls at Santa and greasing poles.

And I have been in many a stadium, including an Eagles vs Dallas night game in the 200 level (the nosebleed area), and the Phillies World Series win in 2008, and I have never experienced the chaos and pandemonium, the sheer volume of noise and press of people, and such sensory overload as that of team Roma in the Stadio Olimpico.

I hope the US is ready for it.  They are going to need to do more than grease a few poles.