Re: Serie A Thread
believe me guys, what is happening in the italian stadia has anything to do with football, fans, sport....
the european media create a link between italian football and violence and a link between fans and ultras.
both links are wrong.
fans - ultras
all the most important european newspapers (french, spanish, english.... i don't speak german, so i can't talk about german newspapers) always point out how the ultras are just "a part of the italian fans".
but sayin that ultras are "a part" of the italian football fans is still wrong. a 20%, 30%... this would be "a part"...
but a 4\5% of the italian football fans community, that's not even "a part". that's a negligible percentage.
now u will tell me "
not that negligible, if they can do such a mess"..... and that's true. but including the ultras inside the italian football fan community is a distortion. because they're a too little percentage and because their actions are not grounded on football or football teams. they don't act to "protect" their team. actually they're the most dangerous threat to their own teams..... AND THEY'RE WELL AWARE OF IT!
they threaten the supporters of their own team, they blackmail the owners of their own team.
this is not acting for the sake of your team. this is willfully damaging your team... and they do it on purpose.
italian football - violence
this is another tipycal stereotype, due to lack of information by european media. As i already wrote before what is happening inside and outside the italian stadia has anything to do with football.
i guess some examples might let u understand what i'm talking about....
look at what happened sunday in roma. in the afternoon roma and lazio ultras said they would have done a mess if roma match would have been played (roma match should have started at 8 pm.
well, sunday at 5 pm we already knew roma match was cancelled......
roma and lazio ultras had no reason anymore to be angry...... but they contraddicted themselves and still did what they did....
and btw, what should they be angry about seriously??? is was an accident. it was caused by the negligence of a policeman, that's for sure.... but still it was nothing more than an accident.
i wonder what would they do then if a lazio female supporter would be raped? or if a little lazio supporter would be kidnapped?
would they start a civil war?? of course not. they wouldn't care, exactly as they don't care about that guy. the only thing they really care is the fact that a policeman caused the death of somebody (no matter who the dead was)... and this is a perfect pretext to unleash their fury.
atalanta supporters causing troubles to their own city, burning their fellow citizen's cars, their stores, causing a penalization to their own football team..... that's what we're talking about!
we aren't talking about fans of rival teams fighting each others for the sake and the honour of their own club.... we're talking about people damaging their own city, their own clubs.
they're some sort of "black bloc". do u think black blocs have anything to do with politics? of course not. they're just idiot, ignorant, frustrated and angry people who use politc as a pretext to unleash their fury.
and the same goes for this people.
we all remeber pretty well what happened in catania last year, don't we?
and we all remember that ther wasn't any fight between palermo and catania ultras. Palermo ultras never joined that riot. it was just catania ultras against catania policemen. so what does this has to do with football???? anything. it would have been a "football problem" if catania ultras would have fight against palermo ultras..... but that's not what happened.
another example.... those bastards blackmail their own clubs owners.
since we established that each time ultras cause any kind troubles (flares on the pitch, petards, racists banners, riots) their clubs have to pay (we have different kind of sanctions; economic fine, stadia disqualifications, closed doors matches), those bastards found an easy way to make easy money.
they contact the owner and tell him "
do u wanna avoid sanctions? then give us money and we won't cause any troubles next week"
if the owner doesn't pay then he will pay for it. when the stadium gets disqualified or when the italian federation penalize the club with a closed door match, the club doesn't earn the money (tickets cash) for that match..... we're talking about millions euros!
this season something new happened. milan's ultras started some sort of a "supporting strike". they didn't sing, didn't put any banner till last month. from august to october san siro was some sort of a silent cathedral. the italian authorities started an investigation about this situation (because they already had some suspicions about the possible reasons of the strike) and they discovered that the ultras were blackmailing galliani. "
if u don't pay us san siro will become more silent than a museum".
galliani didn't pay, and we all noticed the consequences of his (wise) decision.
when this story became pubblic, sky italy journalists went to san siro and interviewed the fans before they got inside the stadium. they all replied the same way "
i would like to sing, but the ultras are disallowing us to do it, they threaten us".
the following week the strike ended.
now guys honestly how can we say this has anything to do with football??? do u think that those milan ultras can be considered as milan supporters???? do u think they care about their club?????
do u wanna know wich is the difference between an ultras and a supporter??
take a look at this video then.
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=dPDAlrEU7YU
a coupe of weeks ago, during juventus - udinese, an ultras threw a petard on the pitch, close to a player... but that idiot wasn't in the curva (the stadium end, the ultras turf) he was in the stands.
did u see which was the supporters reaction? if that idiot would have thrown that petard from the curva, none of the people around him would have done anything, nobody would have informed the stewards. that prick said that he didn't find any tickets for the curva and so he had to buy a stand ticket.... probably he didn't realize that ultras and football supporters are totally different things.... he didn't expect the people around him to react that way.
when the stewards brought that idiot outside the stadium the people on the stand was applauding.....
while the ultras from the curva were screaming "bastards" towards the people in the stands.... because they reported the the fact to the stewards....
and exactly the same thing happened in napoli 2 weeks ago
that's why i'm saying that is completely wrong identify ultras with supporters. the ultras are not supporters, they're not even a part of the italian fans community. they're just "ultras".
we have no violent supporters..... well, at least no more than the other countries...
violence is not a "football problem", is an ultras problem. for those bastards football is nothing more than a "frame".
if we will ever be able to kick their asses out of our football stadia, then they will fill our rugby stadia... coz it doesn't really matters to them, as long as they can do what they wanna do.
p.s.
i also have to highlight that not every ultras group is composed by thugs who don't care about football. there are also some (a few, honestly) ultras groups who never cause problems, who really care about their teams... i guess we could define them "hardcore supporters"... theese guys are supporters.... but the majority of ultras aren't.
But i've read in papers (i know) that despite what happened last sunday, ther eis less and less violence in Italian football. So perhaps it's better to think about this positive thing.
i would love to tell u that's true mate..... but imo, it isn't
our stadia are safer than last year, that's for sure. but we just made 1 (very) little step foward.... and what happened last year in catania, can happen again (also because that mess was outside the stadium)
sorru for my umpteenth longest post
EDIT:
Back to seria a the week after next, on which note could anyone offer a preview of what we can excpect from those ties to cheer the mood up a little?
Lo zio? Milanista etc?
sorry Van, i read your post just after writing mine and now i gotta go. i'll see if i will find some free time tomorrow to talk about next week matches
Palermo-Juve soon? Sounds great because both teams - I'm especially happy about Palermo - seem to be in good form. 
. guana?:shock