This Saturday is the final of the Champions League, the top championship of soccer teams in Europe. It has extra interest this year, because for the first time, both teams are from the same city: Real Madrid versus Atletico Madrid.
Having not grown up in or near a city with multiple sports teams, I've always wondered how people in such a city choose their team. Plenty of places do have that choice: Real vs Athletico, Mets vs Yankees, AC vs Inter, Cubs vs White Sox, City vs United, Angels vs Dodgers, Rangers vs Celtic, Jets vs Giants. In some cases, it's based on areas of the city, that accounts for, say the many soccer teams of London. But what's really odd is that for so many of those pairs of teams, one is historically more successful than the other.
So what sort of person chooses the Mets over the Yankees, given that the Yankees have won twenty-seven World Series, while the Mets have won two, both of which appear to have been by divine intervention? Sure, some people are just drawn to the underdog. And I guess some are turned off of the top team by the many posers who are drawn to them. It says something that so many people far from New York and Madrid choose to be Yankees or Real fans primarily to be associated with the winning team. And really, that seems to be how more people choose their sports teams: they look for a winner, even if it's far from home. So voluntarily cheering for the lesser local team shows quite a dedication to the disadvantaged, or just a sense of sadism.
And speaking of the disadvantaged, in some cases the choice of team is based not on the part of the city you're from, but the class you're in. In Madrid's case, Real is reported to be the team of the upper class, while Atletico is the team of the working class. That's all too fitting, since Real's on-field success comes from their bigger budget. It's part of the great sporting irony that American sports leagues feature socialist measures like revenue sharing, luxury taxes, and salary caps, while European leagues are highly unregulated, offering a laissez-faire atmosphere that Americans prefer in any area of life except sports. I've always wondered why European sports fans haven't risen up to demand more equal sports. But now that I find out that their teams reflect their real-life situations, I can't believe we haven't seen a revolution. "Real" even means "Royal"; what more promoting do they need to grab the pitchforks and storm the castle/stadium?
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