I remember standing in the back row of a rickety, bare-bones soccer stadium in – of all places – Venice, Italy.
Venezia. La Serenissima. A town where, on many of its winding, warren-like alleyways, the average building is a 16th-century palazzo.
It was 1997. I hadn't come specifically for soccer, but I wasn't going to let this dream vacation pass without attending a match.
AC Venezia – destined to be promoted to Italy's top league the following spring – were home to hated local rivals Hellas Verona.
In this ancient canalled city of Da Vinci and Marco Polo, a squadron of armed riot police had deployed to protect a single boatload of travelling Verona fans. An odd and jarring sight, after drifting though endless alleyways of cafés, gardens and ageless architectural loveliness.
Soccer is an unapologetic parallel world. It's rougher, blunter, deeply passionate – and you can find it almost anywhere.
THE WORLD CUP IS OVER, NOW WHAT?
For an entire month, soccer's quadrennial celebration transformed host nation South Africa into the world's hottest tourist destination.
But now the World Cup is done, with almost the entire world of soccer at rest, where are the faithful to go?
It is always soccer season somewhere and as the major European leagues kick off their season next month, it will be soccer season everywhere. In Canada and the United States, the games go on. But they will also be playing in Britain, Australia and Brazil, in countries as vast as Russia and as tiny as Malta. Few of those leagues pass without at least some Canadians attending their matches every year, some on organized tours but most making their own travel and ticket arrangements. For all but the very biggest games of the season there is usually a way to find tickets, especially if you become knowledgeable about the teams and their fans.
“I just think it’s absolutely exciting to be in other countries, and watch how other cultures celebrate and cheer on the game,” says Connie Zimmer, an auto worker from Burlington, Ont., who has travelled to Europe, Central America and all over Canada and the U.S. watching soccer. “Each country you go through is unique and different, and that just fascinates me.”
Toronto FC has an important CONCACAF Champions League match in Honduras next month. Zimmer is going – with soccer stops in Philadelphia and Costa Rica on the way. “Sometimes I feel a little anxious as a woman travelling alone,” she says. “But once I get in the vicinity of the stadium, every single game that I’ve been to, I’m completely embraced by the locals. They’re just fascinated that people from Canada are coming all the way down there to watch these football games. I’ve been treated like royalty at every game that I’ve gone to.”
BACK IN VENICE...
Inside the Stadio Penzo, a baying mob of hard-core Venezia fans thundered drums and sent up billowing plumes of smoke in the local team’s colours – green, orange and black. The game on the field was drab and inelegant, but there was a pleasing finish. The home team scored the only goal in the match’s final minute – and the goal scorer celebrated by taking off his shorts, and waving them – high above his head – at the delirious fans.
EUROPEAN FOOTY VS. DISNEYFIED McFANDOM
Video editor Mike Langevin of Toronto is another soccer fan on the move.
“A friend of mine is getting married in some medieval castle an hour or so away from Marseilles,” he says. “I’ve followed the French league for years, and Marseilles is my team. Soccer is the reason I’m using to justify the trip to myself.
