I love soccer sociopolitics. If someone wants to invite me to an idiot dinner, there’s the excuse. Pondering on that subject, it could well rival the chopstick constructions of Francois Pignon.
The first thing I would explain to diners is that when analyzing the identity of a club, one tends to make the same mistake as when trying to explain that of a person: consider it in isolation. Nobody is by himself, we all are in relation to a context that determines us. In the case of clubs, to understand the dimension of some colors, you have to analyze who they compete with. More specifically, what are its great rivals. It is in the derbies when the deep identity of the clubs is put into play. It is a topic that Barcelona and Real Madrid, for example, they need each other. The old idea of Old Firm that emerged at the beginning of the century in glasgow about the matches between Celtic and rangers it extends to every derby, in the sense that clubs benefit from the existence of their nemesis.
But I do not mean that. What I mean is that the identity of the clubs emerges at the moment in which they face those who, by definition, they understand as antagonists. It is significant, then, that the great rivalry in Spaina Condition historically centralist, be it between the strongest team in the capital and the most powerful in the peripheries. This pattern is repeated in Francebetween PSG and the Marseilles (even when PSG has barely 50 years of history), but it doesn’t work in Italy or England.
This weekend the Basque derby is played. How to explain it to someone who doesn’t know it? I like to think that in terms of coexistence. It is in this sense, in which for me the Athletic–Real society It’s the big game of the year. It is the one that I enjoy the most and of which I am most proud, because I consider that, together, both clubs put on one of the most beautiful shows in the world of football: that of two hostile fans on the pitch, twinned in everything else, who toast together for a healthy rivalry that is our responsibility to take care of like the treasure that it is.
#rivals