Offside Sound-Off: What Is Your Favorite Team and Why?

By: Laurie | January 4th, 2008

There are currently two teams occupying my heart. One was love at first sight. The other was more like an arranged marriage.

The first is the France national team. When I watched them play for the first time? Instant fireworks.

Part of it was the players. (Like…oh…say…Zidane. ‘Nuff said.) Part of it was the style of play. (Very precise. Very accurate. Very pretty to watch.) Part of it was the question: “Whoa. How can they get away with having a team that’s this multicultural in a country and continent with such strong feelings of national identity?” Recipe for conflict. Conflict is interesting. I was immediately hooked.

Sure, it probably seems pretentious to love the national team of somebody else’s nation. What can I say? In the immortal words of Woody Allen, the heart wants what it wants. (And he was trying to justify shagging his stepdaughter. I’m just justifying soccer love. Cut me some slack here.)

My other team, though? The Galaxy? It was a decision to learn to like them. I realized awhile back that I was tired of being one of those people. You know — the people who lament the fact that soccer isn’t big here, but then don’t support the teams.

So I picked the team that was physically closest to me, started writing the team blog on this site… And within a few months I was hooked. Not on the AEG money and drama, or the David Beckham thing, but on the “little” players trying to make the best of last year’s unwinnable situation. I was fascinated by everything they did to cope with all of the expectations surrounding Beckham’s arrival. They did their best under the MLS constraints. And I realized that this story was equally interesting.

Those are the stories of my two favorite teams. Now we at The Offside want to hear yours. So tell us in the comments:

Which team(s) do you love and why?

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Category: World Football

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Harriet

The Germany National Team definitely. Good football, good to watch
jer

roma roma roma
Daryl

Wolves, England and the US MNT.

Supporting Wolves is a family tradition that I struggled against as a youngster (briefly supported Man Utd in the late '80s as a form of protest) but eventually learned to love.

My first memory of England is Italia '90, the first tournament I was old enough to watch properly. England made the semis and I thought it would always be like that. Then along came Graham Taylor...

First paid attention to the US MNT out of curiosity after moving here. I saw a team mostly ignored in their own country but hated by the rest of CONCACAF and looked down on by more established European nations and immediately started supporting them as a matter of sympathy (and I guess geography.)
Ryan

Sevilla, why?

Upon arrival in Sevilla in 2004 for my first expat experience, we were taken to our apartments by our advisor, which were about 45 seconds away from the Sanchez Pizjuan and since then I've been hooked! They are a lower budget team but are successful in their own right.

As a kid I supported Liverpool (and still do) in the premiership since we didn't get many games in the states and what I knew I only saw on the EPL Review show every Sunday night.
Musab

Ever since i was a little kid i only knew one love: Galatasaray. My entire family has a great passion for soccer and as such i was brought up with it.

I could recite every victory against Fenerbahce and the number of cups we had by the age of three. I could never imagine loving any other team as much as I love Galatasaray. (I do have an affinity towards Man U and Real Madrid as well)

And to Erinti: I agree with what you said about the 02 world cup but I must ask you to turn back to the Yellow-Reds. Fenerbahce has not done one positive thing for Turkish football (save Rustu, who could have came to Galatasaray) And Besiktas truly has nothing to offer their fans. Come back to Galatasaray where the Turkish youth are always wanted and European glory is the best objective.
Lowe

Newcastle United.
Why?
A team in the Northeast of their country, their glories in the past but their ambitions are always to be champions, sounds a little like another team I love- The Red Sox.
If it can happen to the Sox, it can happen in Newcastle.
And yes, I know that I am dreaming.
Erinti

Olympiakos I inherited from my family. Some of my favorite cousins support them, my mother supports their hated rivals Panathinaikos—wouldn't you have done the same at age 13? For a while I was threatening to desert them if they didn't shape up, but then they got Rivaldo, and by the time he left I'd rediscovered my creepily eternal love for Predrag Djordjevic, so now I'm stuck again.

The rest have mostly come from the World Cup; every year I'll adopt a team or three (and won't let go of them unless a. all the guys I remember have retired and b. the current generation start sucking really, really hard or eating live kittens on the field), and if I *really* take a shine to a particular player, I'll follow him home, if you will, and start supporting his club. I only semi-followed '94 and '98; '02 was when I decided that just supporting Brazil was kind of boring and I'd be best latching on to some other teams.

In '02, it was Turkey. (Let me tell you, I was *angry* to find that South Korea had been voted most entertaining team of the tournament.) I supported Galatasaray for a while after that but quickly ditched them for Fenerbahçe and then Beşiktaş (blame Rüştü).

In '06, there were several. Portugal was one of the big ones; though I'm kind of over Cristiano Ronaldo, I now have a slight soft spot for both Barcelona (Deco!) and Real Madrid (Figo! Zidane, too, but he's not Portuguese) thanks to them. Makes El Clasico time fun, let me tell you. Then there was also Ghana, though I didn't follow any of their guys home. I wasn't supporting Germany as such, but I took enough of a shine to Jens Lehmann that Arsenal are now my second club.
roswitha

As a fourteen year old looking for a diversion from the nationwide passion for cricket that engulfs my country (and my city, and yes, me) every hour of the day, I stumbled upon France '98, and found a team that I dimly remembered from an absolute heartbreaker of a photograph that had made global headlines four years earlier, in 1994. That photograph was of Roberto Baggio's slumped shoulders in California. There was a sense of recognition. Since then, failing at penalty shootouts has become my signature footballing tragedy, and Italy the team I follow, through thick and thin, to the inevitable painful end. It's not that I'm a masochist -- I certainly enjoyed 2006 a whole lot more than I did 2004, 2002, 2000, etc. Well, maybe I'm a bit of a masochist.

I have no small teams to support, no relegation crushes that I nurture in my alienated foreign bosom, club-wise. I support Milan. I love the way they play [...stop with the jokes, people, trust me when I say I've cracked them all already] and I love that they've played the same way for the last couple of decades [and with the same players, too. Cough]. It's one of the reasons I like Barcelona so much, too, although that's a far more academic interest.

Speaking of footballing loves that grow out of a cult of personality, can I confess that I adore Argentina, not just because I think that on their good days they put football on a different planet, but because they played for Diego Maradona, and he played for them.
Johnny

Boca, Boca and more Boca. I am an expat american moving around the world. I spent the last two years in Buenos Aires, and now I'm in Mexico City. I have experienced few things like a big match at the Bombonera. The heartbreak is the constant loss of players to Europe, but that never dampens the fervor of the Boca faithful.
glatisant

And in answer to the question: France. They are a good team for a nomad.
glatisant

Sure, it probably seems pretentious to love the national team of somebody else’s nation.
In the country where I was born, practically nobody plays football. For political reasons, international representation is restricted.
In the country where my family came from, the NT and professional leagues are a national disgrace, not to mention, it's hard to root for the team of a dictatorship.
In the country where I've grown up, soccer ranks somewhere behind logrolling and mudwrestling in entertainment value for a goodly number of the population. Given that, and considering that we’re used to beating other nations up (athletically and in other ways), it hardly seems fair to ask for world domination here as well.

Even if one of the three countries I listed above actually gets a good football team (and yes, I realize the US may become one not too far off in the future), I don't really feel obligated to support any of them just because they are "mine". If that makes me pretentious, so be it.
Mike

At club level i am a romanista till i die. I watched them play a game on FSC in 05 one time against Sampdoria. Totti scored off of a simply sublime free kick and i have been hooked ever since. I have such a love for them that i got a tattoo of the ASR part of the badge on my arm. Also put a hole in my wall after the Roma Juve game this year because they got screwed off of that throw in.

My National team is Italy. I know a lot of you are probably thinking i like them because of the WC. not the case. I have liked them ever since WC 94. Thats when my cousin and I started supporting them because our grandmother is full blooded italian. Spending much of my time when younger there, it was just natural that i actually start following them. My following of them as grown exponentially since i got into the sport(like actually following it religiously and not just passively.), which happens to be when i got into Roma and started actually playing.

i also casually root for Arsenal(as its my cousins team and he does the same for roma) and for some reason Schalke 04 in the bundesliga.
Abby

When I'm not a Hertha fan, I'm an Arsenal fan. I like adopting the teams of places I've spent time in- I support FC Barcelona in La Liga, as well. But I've spent more time in London/Berlin than Spain...

As far as national teams go, I tend to pull for Germany. It's irrational- I just like them, and my attachment to the Bundesliga carries over. And it's the one place I can like Philipp Lahm. ;)
Jeff

433, well said earlier. I'm an Arsenal faithful through and through and since Henry's departure they've played their best football, more fluid and enjoyable than even that of Barca and Bayern Munich.
On the side of national team football, I try to support my nationalities of U.S., Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and the Czech Republic (Rosicky).
433 (total newbie)

Laurie asked, "433, are you sure you didn’t get 3 and 4 reversed?"

Good catch. I stand corrected.
James

Mexican national team, watching them play against holland in the world cup.. simply amazing

Also the first club I ever followed was U.N.A.M. from mexico, Jorge campos would make thrilling saves and not-saves and the team was playing beautiful football. I'm proud to say I've followed them through the good and the bad.
Francis

I have a favorite team in the top 5 leagues, some for good reason, some are simply retarded(but i still like the team)

England: Gunner at heart.
Germany:Werder Bremer, gotta love the green
Spain:Valencia, because of David Villa
Italy:Atalanta, love the blue&black and the logo.
France:Dijon! My favorite topping(mustard), so now its my team!
Sam

Spurs, Toronto FC, Canada and a French League team that I cannot disclose for professional reasons. :)
Matt

The French team is multicultural? I'd agree if they had a mix of French and non-French players. :-\
Laurie

433, are you sure you didn't get 3 and 4 reversed?

I mean...um... Yeah. How 'bout that Clichy?

;-)
Lucas

Oh I almost forgot: Sunderland, too ;)
Lucas

Portland Timbers are the sine qua non of my love of football/soccer.

Due wholly to the tidal waves of love and joy I get from the Timbers (and the Timbers Army), I have developed a love for the game that gets me out of bed as early as 4am on the weekends.

I have gone on two trips to Europe (to see club football in England and World Cup in Deutschland), and multiple trips up and down the left coast of America (Vancouver, Seattle, San Fran), and plan to go on another long roadie this season to follow the Timbers (probably to the Deep South).

The Timbers are like no other sports team I've ever experienced, and I grew up with a deep love of football (US), baseball and basketball. I still like those sports (Portland Trail Blazers, love my Miami Dolphins), but the Timbers are at the very top of the heap for me.

I never thought I'd get a tattoo of a sports team, but that's just what I did on my 30th birthday. Now I have a huge Timbers axe on my leg.

And this is perhaps the first year since their rebirth in 2001 that there hasn't been uncertainty about the future of the team. They may be in MLS in 3 years, or they may not exist at all. But the absolute love generated by the players and the fans and the whole shebang have infected me.

Rose City Till I Die!
433 (total newbie)

It is unbearably pretentious to support the national team of somebody else’s nation!

Of course I'm being ironic. I'm a French-national-team supporting American myself! People from everywhere support Brazil, so it's nice to see some love being sent France's way.

For club football, there could be no other: Arsene Wenger's Arsenal. Watching them at their best is almost as good as bad sex. There's actually a pretty well-defined, widely-accepted hierarchy of pleasurable activities:

Top of the heap: Good sex
2nd: Bad sex
3rd: I can't say in mixed company (but I don't really need to)
4th: Arsenal at their flowing best
5th: Charcoal-grilled USDA prime steaks
6th: Arsenal off the pace, but still putting one over Spurs

After that, the uniformity of agreement dissipates.
Bonnie

See, I follow most major leagues, so I've always had a favourite from each, Reading and Liverpool from EPL, Valencia from La Liga, Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga, but two teams rule my life.

Milan - forever and always. I love the tradition, the loyalty, the Milan "family" (yes, I totally buy into it). I fell in love with the in the CL Final of 2005. I went in a Liverpool supporter, I came out a broken-hearted Milanista.

And Toronto FC. Being a football fan in Toronto has never been so amazing.
Martha

Love, love, love the love for Portugal. They really rub people the wrong way for some reason, it's nice there are a few people are here who see the light.
VictorM

At club level... NY Red Bulls, because I've lived in NJ most of my life.

At Nats level, I root for teams in this order: Portugal, USA, and Brazil. Why? Country of birth, where I live now, and preferred style of play, respectively.
Andrew

I just got in to the sport recently. Not even a year ago in fact. I honestly knew nothing about the players, the clubs, etc. (classic American, I know) but one day at school I saw a video of Ronaldinho on youtube. I'd never heard of him and didn't even know that Barcelona had a club, but watching him play and do stuff I'd never seen with a football just drew me in and I've been hooked since. When I tell people that story I say that I didn't choose Barca, it chose me. I also point out that if I had seen a C. Ronaldo video or a Robinho video...or somebody else with really flashy moves I probably would have been drawn to Man Utd. or RM, so I just happened to catch that Ronaldinho one and my romance with Barca began.

I've also come to like the Portugal National Team. When I was just starting to read about Barca and memorize their typical starters I began to read about Deco. He seemed like a cool player and I remembered hearing that Portugal made it pretty far into WC '06. I started reading Greg's Portugal Offside and that got me hooked on all things Portuguese related and I have been ever since (I just wish he didn't retire from the Blogosphere).
JT

And I pick a club every year to support in the English Premier League. Its Sunderland this year. It hasn't gone well.
JT

As a Polish Catholic kid growing up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in Philly, every Sunday morning included church and Celtic (the Eagles too in the fall).

So I was always aware of the club, its traditions, and all that good stuff.

I didn't really follow them too much through college and my travels, but watching a 3-3 draw with the Huns soon after the World Cup in '02 got me hooked again.

Wonder goals from Henrik the Great, brutal tackles, and 22 players who left every single thing they had on the pitch was just a sight to see. Celtic got a late equalizer from Sutton and there was a major tunnel fracas afterward.

I know that proponents of "beautiful" football will cringe at that match description, but for me, I want to see grit, heart, and team play above all else. No one in Britain or on the continent does that better than Celtic.

Oh, they play some pretty good football on occasion too.
Ian

First love, now and always, is Inverness Caledonian Thistle football club. They're sort of the official club of the Scottish highlands, and my family has always lived in and around Inverness, back for centuries. They're a new club, being a merger of two old clubs only 14 years ago, but the old clubs go back a while, and that was basically when I was getting into football, so I've sort of grown up with them. Now that they're in the top flight, more than six people worldwide have ever heard of them too, which is a nice little bonus for me.