February 27th, 2006
Me if good, bad if you
As I am writing this, at 17:00 this very cold, quite bright day, there are appx. 30000 Swedes on the way to Medborgarplatsen, going to celebrate the fact that a few people who are citizens of this country (Sweden) have together won a gold medal in the olympics? I think it’s for playing ice-hockey, but I’m not.
Well, it’s for the country, or so I’m told. What’s for the country, you say? Pride? A sense that we all together have something in common, because these people have won a tournament?
If these players would have failed at attaining even a bronze medal, their names wouldn’t have been mentioned anywhere, utterly un-hailed and nothing would have been written except for a few diatribes where old journos would have scorned even the players’ spawn’s future spawn.
But today, “we won” and “we’re the greatest” adorn the Swedish papers. Why, oh why, don’t they proclaim the opposite when “our” athletes rock like a pile of shit? Imagine it, headlines like “We’re the worst!” or “We’ve lost! That’s bad!” I’d definitely celebrate that.
Do I hate sports? Not at all, but I just hate the way the papers and people in general seem to love themselves when a few athletes, who are citizens of of the same country as they, win something. These regular people seldom say or write anything when “our beloved athletes” lose. I love the way nationalists say something like “we’re on the way to a gold medal!” (meaning the athletes) and (the athletes) fail miserably, as there’s nothing more exhilerating than saying “Oh, YOU lost miserably. You’re bad!” They give you the most twisted stare, having somehow severed the what-was-sacred-at-least-a-day-ago link betwixt themselves and their heroes of yore.
February 27th, 2006 at 22:29
Well..
Sports is a great excuse for people to come together somehow.
Either to hate on the losers or the cheer for “our” great winners.
The game vs Finland was kind of a big deal, olympic final vs the arch enemy..
Turned out to be a very dramatic game and that contributes to today’s headlines in the newspapers.
It had all the ingredients to be become a “classic”.
Foppa/Sundin/Lidström’s last olympics, Finland on the other side of the rink,
Olympic final, the probable booing of Silvio Berlusconi if he had shown up.
Sweden wins = Headlines extraordinaire
Had Sweden missed to qualify for the playoffs, the headlines would have been the exact opposite.
But still, extraordinaire!
That’s basically how sports works: if they win, we win.
If they lose, THEY lose.
Of course you must hate on the newspapers, cause they are only profit hungry bitches from hell.
But I would not hate on the people that hate on losers or love the winners..
I think it’s the privilege of all human beeings to hate on overpaid athletes that screw up!
I mean when Niklas and I played NBA Live 04/05 or watched the NBA playoffs we hated on everybody crossing our paths!!
I can’t even describe how much we hated Allen Iversons or Kobe Bryant’s guts.. Cause they are overpaid, foul crying, molesting bitches from ghetto hell that think their life is tougher than that of a starving child from Sudan.
That was an example of hating on the opponent.
Very easy to do!
And you don’t get that criticized for doing that..
I hated on our beloved Indiana Pacers when they lost to Detroit!
Don’t remember if Niklas did that but he probably did too.
To hate on somebody you cheer for is harder, but not that hard. They just have to lose without giving their all, then you have to give them hell.
But you are running the risk of being criticized for doing it.
The “we win, they lose” debate is really hard because its all about the love of the game..
The utter happiness that people feel when their national team wins is amazing, totally undescribable(indescribable ?)
I’ve been there!
When Yugoslavia played Croatia for the first time after the civil war, the game was decided in a amazing way.
I was in Belgrade with my cousin watching the game on tv.
Yugoslavia were big favorites to win over the very young and unexperienced Croation team, but it’s never that easy..
The Croats took the lead with 3-4 seconds to go, Yugoslavia inbound the ball to the messiah (Sasa Djordjevic) he brings the ball upcourt at the speed of light, stops at the 3-point line, jumps up and somehow gets the ball in the air between two croatian defenders, the end of the game buzzer sounds as the ball is at its highest peak in the air.. At that time I think I almost fainted. The ball continued it’s destined path towards the rim.. and of course it went in..
Utterly crazy!
I was so happy, it felt like I had won a brazilion dollars at the same time I was having an orgasam..
Screaming like a fucking maniac!
Outside the kalasnikovs are shooting up the place..
Totally crazy, later on half a million people gathered in downtown Belgrade to celebrate!
Now imagine if the messiah had missed that shot..
We have a country that’s in ruins where the only bright spot in peoples lives is sports, and that’s basically it!
Playing the real arch enemy against the country just fought a war against (stupid war but anyway), overwhelming favorites to win that game and to go on to win Gold..
Man I would have been pissed, cause they robbed me of eternal happines at the same time im having an orgasm..
THEY LOST!
But it didn’t happen, WE WON!
To sum it up, the “we win, they lose” equation is very hard to solve because of the “love of the game varible”.
That’s why I think its hard to hate on people that hate their team for losing, you just don’t know how much it means to them!
and death to all profit hungry newspapers/journalists!
/Rade
February 27th, 2006 at 23:08
Hey there, Bill Laimbeer!
I’m not into dissing sports nor the fans, just nationalism and people who claim to like sports, while things are going well for them (and do note the semantic difference; some of these people like to make it sound they’re part of the team) but when said team is in the dumps, the “fans” say “they” (i.e. the team, not themselves) should burn eternally for it.
I can dig people dissing their own teams – and how many times haven’t I dissed myself in games (except for when whipping your ass in almost every game known to man) – but nationalism really doesn’t have anything to do with sports.
I remember when the tragic Yugoslavian war broke out, and players who previously were united suddenly became arch-enemies over land-boundaries. How anti-intellectual is that? Hey, let’s hate each-other based on which side of a border we’re standing. Of course there was a lot more to that war than borders, but that was part of it, which (as you mention) sadly was represented in the national games.
And how much do athletes really care about nationalism? Hopefully not all that much. At least, Svennis doesn’t.
Hence, I don’t care about how much or little love people have for their teams, as long as they give as much love as when the team is in the dumps, and if they’re nationalists – hey, that’s their effing loss. I can’t be arsed with people who care about boundaries. Every boundary is a limit, and I’m just 2 Unlimited.
No no, no no no no…
February 28th, 2006 at 01:43
Hell Niklas we played for 100 people in newcastle tonight so the idea of having about 30.000 people gathered gives me a woody even if I’m not a sportsfan in any meaning of the word! Also to be picky we actually had that many people gathered to celebrate the bronze medal in rålambshovsparken in 1994 when we had the football thing almost going for us so what you say is inaccurate as we celebrate even when we don’t even have reason to be! beyond that I’m too drunk & tired to finish reading your post so maybe I got some facts wrong and I’m contradicting myself but whatever, Lifes a riddle that you have to find the clues too and I’m fucked up like a baby Yipipiiiikayeaiiiih motherfucker, it’s dark outside, I’m not wearing shades & I don’t smoke but let’s put the pedal to the metal & drive into thye night while getting wasted! Make any sense, of course not, I’m Zak and like I said & I’m drunk with a still existing internet connection! I HATE JAMES BLUNT!
February 28th, 2006 at 07:56
Drunk, dank and de-bunked…
I’m suddenly becoming more of a believer in the old saying about self-confessed patriots: call them out to war and they (except for the chickenhawks, of course) will go, no matter what the cause.
People! Believing that the borders that distinguish the barriers of the country you live in make for good, do you? Then give me one good reason to think that’s so.
Of course, I’m still saying what I said in my main post: nationalism and lying to yourself and your so-called ideals is a good push on the road of stupidity.