question

Do you think we should be happy or proud when our own country is victorious at football or in any other sport, wether you like it or not ?

 

oh, yes,
i think is about pride on the country

 

well, here is my story on it. i just hate footbal (soccer). i find it a stupid sport that is just overrated. but when the "Red Devils" (the Belgian team) are playing, i always look and love it when they win.

 

and why should we be proud (or why shouldn't we be proud) ? if you had to present several arguments, what would you say ?

 

Well, living in Australia, I don't really have much to be proud of football-wise, so I actually felt that Croatia deserved to go through more than us, and wasnt really proud at all. But with sports such as Cricket and Rugby which we've always been quite good at, I am proud when we win something.

 

What's football?
Reasons not to be proud: (this is all UK specific - I don't know how it goes anywhere else).
Footballers (the "big names" are over-paid prima donnas.
The sport, in and of itself, does nothing to actually promote the country (except ocassionally in a negative way from fan behaviour).
The world cup causes a rash of "patriotism", helped by the sale of over-priced junk paraphernalia, flags etc, to huge numbers people who generally spend the rest of their time moaning about what a crap government, social system etc they're living in.
It does nothing to raise the awareness of other countries, except as rivals.
It dominates the media (to the extent that even TV adverts now automatically assume that if you're still breathing then you have nothing more to interest you than football).
Normal life seemingly comes to a halt because of the event. Why? The rest of the world is still there, but the football results are reported on as if they were a matter of actual survival.
Five minutes after it's over the UK goes back to being an insular little island again (apart from the interminable rehash of "what our team should have done to prevent getting knocked out in the first round ", which takes a while longer).

 

absolutly true for the rest of the world as well.
since when did Football became a f*cking religion

 

Pretty much the same here when it comes to soccer as Oli said.
In general I'm lacking the whole patriotism/natiolism idea, which may have something to do with that I hate this country, but even then I fail to see how just about anyone could be "proud" of "his/her country".

 

I hat football, and didn't even found Spain had been eliminated until somebody mentiones it to me next day

 

There are limits. But yeah if your team wins the Cup hey good for you, thousands of people world wide are just as pleased as you.

 

....

So, how do you consider "the act of being" proud of one's country ? Do you think it is a good or a bad thing ?

 

I think it's like getting a piercing; I don't understand why anybody would do it/feel that way, therefore I consider it bad.

 

It is an odd phenomina - how people seem to treat 'England' like a football team to whom they have no allegiance.

We play, the country is awash with flags, England shirts, drunken fools chanting & fighting, etc etc. We lose, and the very next day England flags/shirts/etc are like hen's teeth. Support (and all that fake patriotism) vanishes the moment we lose. And out come the knives.

My wife wore her England shirt on Sunday, basically to prove that she still supported the players despite the loss, and was yelled at in the street. Several times.

If people behaved like that with their regular football teams (Arsenal etc) they would be reviled as 'glory hunters'.


All in all, it really really annoys me. :angry:



Back to the original topic - I think it is a good thing to be happy/proud when your country wins at something.
Just as long as you don't start believing that you are intrinsically better than everybody else because of it.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5140912.stm

 

I think your question is really about nationalism more than football. I think that nationalism taken to extremes is not desirable. That being said there is something in human nature that encourages us to identify with a group with which we feel some kinship and to band together when that group is threatened (not literally in the case of football).
If we recognize it for what it is and not let it get out of hand that is about all we can do. Fighting against human nature always seems to be a losing proposition.

 

Well, Mussolini used football to get nationalism moving, and Franco used it too (but in the 60's he had the advantage of TV ).

 

Yes, we can say so....

 

The very fact that we can mention sports and nationalism in one sentence is wrong. Sports is about athletes doing what they have been trained to do, no matter who they do it for. The fact that players are bought and sold between countries like any other commodity clearly indicates that no football team actually represents their country in any serious way - they're just doing their job and they get a huge paycheck for it. This has nothing to do with "pride" and it barely even has anything to do with "your country".

Meanwhile it cannot be denied that people do associate their sports teams with their countries, for reasons I completely fail to understand (ooh, they're wearing our colours, they must have something to do with us!). This, I think, is bad because no sport can truly represent a country as a whole unless it was founded as a nation of football players and playing football is mandatory for all. Then, and only then, should the results of the national football team mean anything for the country as a whole.

 

Ah, you appear to be mixing up the National Leagues and the World Cup (or European Cup or whatever).

In National Leagues, anybody can play for any team anywhere, provided they can pay their fees (which are ridiculously high).

In the World Cup etc only somebody who is a national of Country A can play for Country A - admittedly some of the rules are a little blurry but that is the basic idea. It is basically the same idea as the Olympics - the best athletes from country A vs the best athletes from country B.

Do you look at the Dutch Olypmic team* and think 'they have nothing to do with the Netherlands'?


I do think that watching the World Cup should be more a case of an opportunity to watch some great football** with the added bonus that your countrymen might win, rather than all your enjoyment hanging on the performance of one team.



*Is there one? I've never noticed any Dutch competitors. But then I don't really pay any attention to the Olympics.

** An opportunity that does not always come to fruition. This year was good but not great.

 

It matters not, for players are naturalized at will just so that they can star in sports teams (only for football, of course). Even so, they are still just eleven people I've never met, from all over the country, who are supposed to represent me even though half of them probably can't pronounce my name.

There is a Dutch Olympic team, but for them, it's the same thing - they are sportsmen doing their job. I feel no particular affinity for them and I am not especially delighted if they win. More so if they set some record or other, because that means that they are really good and worthy.