There are rivalries out there in the big, loud world that not even the most unbalanced, basement-dwelling troll on your favorite college football team’s web site can quite comprehend.
Rivalries that would make a Steelers-Bengals game look like a Sunday School picnic. Red Sox-Yankees? A poetry reading. Bulldogs-Yellow Jackets? A folk festival.
“American sports in general, compared to world (soccer), I don’t know if it’s on the same level,” Atlanta United goalkeeper Brad Guzan said.
Sorry about that, Alabama-Auburn partisans. That’s just how soccer views itself.
In certain parts of the soccer-playing globe, there are sporting rivalries that long ago broke from the ideal of fun and games and staggered into the realms of class and politics, religion and self-worth. All of society’s detonators, packed into a little polygon-patterned ball.
Of soccer’s most notorious rivalries, Atlanta United defender Greg Garza said, “Those games are wars – they’re not soccer matches.”
Those who in the past eight days have played in the first two games ever between Atlanta United and Orlando City – a 1-0 Atlanta United victory July 21 and a 1-1 draw Saturday – seemed somewhat amused at the thought of labeling this fresh-out-of-package conflict an authentic rivalry. They know real rivalries, and have the stories about dodging rocks and spittle to prove it.
Give the dislike time to age, like a fine vinegar, they suggested.
Efforts were made to speed along the process. Erecting a pregame billboard in Orlando last week announcing, “We’re Coming to Conquer,” Atlanta United made a rather crude attempt at poking the bear. And not the friendly ones you find down there at the Country Bear Jamboree, either.
The Orlando City fans were just angry enough to spend parts of the game engaging in the kind of profane chant that required no more effort or imagination than a quick pass-through of a bus-station bathroom. A great family environment – if your family happens to star in a New Jersey-based reality show.
“I think I was called every cuss word there was on the sideline. I blew kisses to them after the game, so that felt good,” said Garza, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the first Atlanta-Orlando City meeting.
“That’s normal in Argentina,” shrugged Tito Villalba, whose scintillating, long-range goal at Orlando was the winner July 21. Also scoring the injury-time goal Saturday that salvaged a tie, Villalba is officially the Orlando killer.
The north end-zone rowdies, who have given voice to pro soccer at Bobby Dodd Stadium before the move to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, let loose their own vulgar response to begin each half Saturday, but at least it never really gained traction. On the field during the Atlanta United loss there were enough yellow cards, enough posturing between opponents, enough bodies writhing on the pitch in exaggerated agony to suggest that an honest dislike could take form over time. Both games have been tension-filled at the end, which will only help the dynamic.
Many of these worldly Atlanta United players have witnessed the extremes of soccer’s great rivalries, experiencing both the exhilaration of the most intense competition they’ll ever enjoy and the bite of the fans’ misplaced passions.
It’s important to remember that these rivalries are not all violence and hooliganism, that memorable competition does break out regularly. All according to how you choose to process the scene.
“There are some excessive behaviors that are unfortunate, but I just like to stick with the parts that make the rivalry so beautiful,” Atlanta United manager Gerardo Martino said. Playing for Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina and coaching FC Barcelona in its lofty rivalry against Real Madrid, he’s had his share of highly charged encounters.
A few tales from the front lines of real soccer rivalries:
For three seasons, Atlanta United’s Technical Director Carlos Bocanegra played in Scotland for Glasgow’s Rangers. Their rivalry with cross-town Celtic is all tied up in religious overtones (along the Protestant/Catholic divide), creating what Bocanegra described as “a deep hatred passed on from generation to generation.”
He said he didn’t experience the violence that has been a part of that game’s history. Rather his memories are far more charming. From the cab driver (obviously a Celtic man) who delivered him to his first day on the job with the wish that he score an own-goal the next time the Rangers played the cabbie’s team. To the chef at the restaurant (a Rangers backer) who happily etched the score of that day’s victory over Celtic into the crust of Bocanegra’s pot pie.
The games passed in relative peace, so long as the line of police stationed between the two sides in the stadium held.
United defender Tyrone Mears grew up in Manchester, England, in a devout Manchester United household. But not so fanatical that the family would stay to the end of every game against Manchester City. “We’d have to leave early from the game because afterward, it’s guaranteed to be fights all around the stadium.”
It wasn’t until he signed to play in France for Olympic Marseille, though, that Mears experienced his scariest soccer-related moment. On the way to his first game at Paris St.-Germain, he was stunned to see police lining the street on the way into the stadium. And still fans were able to pepper the team bus with rocks, smashing out the windows and forcing the players to crouch in their seats as if bracing for an attack.
“The players hated each other. The fans as well,” Mears recalled. “You got to take a throw-in (on the sideline) and they’d be throwing things at you. They’d be shouting, spitting, anything they could do to intimidate you.”
When playing in Mexico for the U.S. National team, Guzan found the security somewhat lacking. “Fans somehow found a way, be it through a window or a door or a hallway to find their way to get close to us. You got to be ready for everything,” he said.
There are elements within the heated soccer rivalry to which the college football fan can relate. “It’s part of your life. It’s part of who you are,” Bocanegra said. He just as easily could have been talking about Georgia-Auburn.
The uglier parts of the deal, we could do without.
Atlanta United-Orlando City hardly ranks yet as any kind of soccer rivalry, for good or bad.
At another of Bocanegra’s stops along his playing career – St. Etienne in France – fans decorated every overpass on the 40-minute drive to face their rival in Lyon with bedsheet messages and warnings and the kind of graphics fit for bottles of strychnine. When the overpasses of Atlanta, from the airport to downtown, become galleries of contempt for Orlando City, then perhaps we’re getting there.
In the meantime, enjoy whatever mild dislike for Disney’s soccer team that you can muster.
“I don’t think you manufacture rivalries, that’s for sure,” Bocanegra said.
“This is going to be a natural rivalry. We’re near each other in the standings (Atlanta United is four points up on Orlando City entering Saturday). It was a really close game the first time we played. It was an unbelievable goal to win it. It’s naturally going to come.”
Without the attendant ugliness, they hope.
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