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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.