Argentina is still in World Cup mode. It is almost impossible to isolate yourself from the event of the sport that moves the most passion on the planet. That is why for two weeks this column revolves around a ball. Today I propose a photographic sketch about the fan, as the soccer fan is known in Argentina.
The fan includes a soccer squad in the pantheon of his most sacred loves. The fan can forgive his team everything; even if throughout his life that condition means more sadness than joy. Always —even more in bad times than in good times— the fan will accompany and encourage.
Fan is for life. The players and soccer leaders pass by; but the swelling remains.
You can be a lawyer who maintains equanimity in your life; a psychologist who has emotional balance in her daily life; a philosopher who has a handful of answers for some phenomena; but as a fan, all professional tools fade while the game lasts on the pitch and nerves stand on edge.
The true fans most of the time standing, jumping, singing or biting their nails.
When the goal appears, it screams so wildly that all the contained adrenaline is released in the roar. If, on the other hand, he suffers defeat, he returns home crestfallen carrying the weight of mourning that will take days to overcome.
The term was born at the beginning of the 20th century in Uruguay, at the Club Nacional de Fútbol de Montevideo. Prudencio Miguel Reyes was the team’s prop man; He was in charge, among other things, of inflating the balls before each game. The task was called in these lands “inflate” and those who performed it, “inflators”.
Prudencio not only did his job but also, while the game was being played, on one side of the field he harangued the “tricolor”, as the Creole team is known. He also ran from one extreme to another and sang songs made up by him. They say that with his booming voice he infected the attendees and motivated the players.
Those were times of passive spectators, who limited themselves to watching in silence and applauding with the goals. That is why Prudencio’s performance was quite a revolution. The older ones say that, in addition to going to see the football game live and direct, they attended attracted by the “inflator” Prudencio.
A century later, the first fan in history continues to cheer on his pitch from a well-deserved statue erected in his honor at the National Football Stadium in Montevideo.
Any consulted etymological dictionary defines the word as a feminine and masculine noun, a supporter and enthusiast of a club or sports team. And among the synonyms they use admirer, fan, enthusiast, fan or fan.
But two key words are missing when describing the physiognomy of a fan’s soul: feeling and passion.
The best definition of a fan is found in the cinema (after all, football also has a lot of art).
“The guy can change everything: face, home, family, girlfriend, religion, God. But there is one thing that cannot change, Benjamin: you cannot change your passion”.
The Secret in Their Eyes, Directed by Juan José Campanella, it is set in Argentina in the mid-1970s, in the convulsive context of the military dictatorship. The protagonists Benjamín and Sandoval drink in a bar while trying to figure out how to find an elusive murderer and rapist.
Rereading the suspect’s letters to his mother full of soccer mentions, Sandoval discovers the only thing impossible for the fan to camouflage: his team. In the stadium, in the next cap of their club, they will finally find the much sought after.
If this is not just another sport, if it is a “shared party or shared shipwreck” as Eduardo Galeano defined it, it is largely due to the existence of the fans.
Whoever fans is part of a species spread throughout the world and all ages. The faces and gestures in these photos, which belong to the Argentine fans during the matches played in Qatar 2022, could be, with different colors, those of any part of the world.
The players admit to feeling stronger when they are encouraged from the stands. The thousands and thousands of throats cheering and singing from the stands can make the difference between winning or losing a game. Football without fans would not be football.
