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I just HAD TO reblog this. Very beautifuly said.
That’s nice & sweet & all, but how many times are we going to read stuff like this? IT IS A RIVALRY! For fucks sake just get over it. If you can’t deal with people…
^^^^ Completely agree.
I have very good friends who support Real Madrid. And a lot of people I know who support Barcelona aggravate me, but that’s…that’s beside the point. The point is, yes, I know very awesome people who support Madrid. But. I don’t, and never will, like their team. They’re the same way with Barcelona. I’m okay with that. I don’t have to like, or even pretend to like, their team just because I like them. I don’t even have to pretend to like any of the players on their team. I do, I actually have huge amounts of respect and love for Iker Casillas and to a lesser extent Gonzalo Higuaín, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the team they both play for. I don’t care that Sergio Ramos also plays in La Roja, I don’t have to like him. I don’t care that Gerard Piqué also plays for La Roja and my team, I don’t have to like him either (I think he needs to shut the hell up 80% of the times he opens his mouth).
It’s not about the national team you like that tells you which players you should like. I think that’s how half the people on Tumblr get into the trouble they get into with the “true fans vs. fangirls” debate (which I loathe, BTW). I think half the reason why people on here like Madrid & Barcelona is because of the players on the national team. It’s not about the national team. People who have grown up around football (and I don’t necessarily claim to have, though I do come from a family that lives and breathes the sport) know that your club comes before your country. Your club plays more. The players spend more time with their club teammates than with their country teammates. There are very few so-called “friendlies” in club football. It’s an entirely different ballgame (ahem…pun intended…).
That said, I’m not going to sit around singing kumbaya with my Madridista friends just because some of Madrid’s players play for the Spanish NT. There are players on Madrid who play for other NTs, just as there are on Barcelona. I’m tired of Spain fans thinking they run the world, or the football community in general. It’s not all about the Spanish national team, it’s not even all about Madrid-Barcelona. There are 20 clubs in the Spanish league, some of which also have players representing them on the national team. There are also hundreds of other countries that have deserving national teams.
I think I’ve gone on way too long a tangent than I originally wanted to, but I guess what I want to say is, no, we don’t have to sit around holding hands, just getting along, with people who support rival teams. I don’t adhere to any of the “Antimadrista” claims a lot of other culés do, but that doesn’t mean I have to like Real Madrid either. In the end, it’s not about the national team and the players who play for it. I love my friends who support Real Madrid. But I don’t have to love their team, nor do they have to love mine. End. Of.
And, since we’re on the topic of the Spanish national team, let me also just say that I am really sick of people talking about how much they miss the World Cup and how much they cried when Spain won and how wonderful it was and yadda yadda. It’s been over for four months now. We’ve all moved on. The team needs to focus on the 2012 Eurocup (which is just as awesome, if not moreso, than the World Cup, it has to be said) and stop thinking about the glories of the World Cup. We didn’t even play that great. Just move on, people. Seriously.
(Source : suisflaneuse)
The story behind “culé/culer”
Due to a lot of people out there in the Tumblr world (and probably outside of it) who don’t seem to understand what the term “culé” means, whether they’re Barça fans or not, I figured I’d type up a definitive explanation of the term; where it comes from and why. Feel free to reblog, link to, quote, whatever. I just want to distribute information.
FC Barcelona was founded in 1899 by Swiss businessman Hans Kamper (later known as Joan Gamper), who wished to create a football club in Barcelona, the city which he made his home after visiting an uncle who lived there. Futbol Club Barcelona was thus founded. In 1909 the club moved into the pitch on the Carrer Indústria (colloquially named “L’Escopidora”, “the Spitoon”), which housed 8,000 people. It was located near where the modern Camp Nou is, in the Les Corts district in Barcelona. This is where the term “culé” (or “culer” Catalan, as final -r is not usually pronounced) originated, since the stadium had no bleachers and the fans attending the matches had to sit on the wall to watch the match.
Thus, when people would pass by on the streets, they would see all of the asses (“ass” is “cul” in Catalan) hanging off the side of the wall, and would refer to them as “culers”, “culés” in Spanish. The name stuck, despite the club moving to the Camp de les Corts in 1922, and to the new stadium, the Estadi del FC Barcelona (commonly referred to as the “Camp Nou”, or “New Pitch” a name which became the official name of the stadium in 2000), inaugurated in 1957 (and expanded in 1982).
cescpiquebarca:
The rivalry: There are derbies and there are derbies. But trying to understand the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona through the prisms of Celtic versus Rangers, Liverpool versus Everton or Spurs versus Arsenal is a mistake. As Barça’s motto makes clear, it is “more…
While I agree that people should just not support Madrid and Barcelona (and why I do judge everyone who does), and while I am culé and would rather see Madrid lose than win (you madridistas know you do the same with Barcelona), and while I also agree that the reason behind the big rivalry is definitely more socio-political than anything else, I really disagree with how the rivalry is presented here.
Both clubs have a very rich, very strong history. In no way should historical reasons present one club as better than the other, or as one being portrayed as a victim and the other the oppressor. That’s not how it works at all. There were plenty of Republicans who supported Real Madrid back during the dictatorship as well as I’m sure there were plenty of fascists supporting Barcelona. Yes, the main reason behind the rivalry is because of a lot of antagonism stemming from the occupation and the repression of Catalan culture and language, but to say that Barcelona is better than Madrid because of all this is incredibly simplistic and disrespectful.
I do realize that nowadays Real Madrid is a more “Spanish” club whereas Barcelona is definitely the “Catalan” club, promoting Catalan nationalism, but at the same time, there are plenty of Madrid supporters who are neither Spanish nationalists nor supporters of any kind of past dictatorship, just as there are plenty of Barcelona fans who don’t support any kind of independence movements coming out of Catalunya, and in fact criticize the board for leaning in that direction (Why do you think a lot of Barcelona supporters hated Joan Laporta?).
My point is, yes, the rivalry is a historical one, yes, it does have a socio-political base. However, to define them based on “good and evil” is incredibly simplistic and disrespectful to supporters of both clubs. I hate when madridistas do it, I hate when culés do it. The rivalry should be taken seriously and it does bother me when people don’t, but it’s not a “good vs. evil” thing. It’s just two football clubs who have a lot of history with each other that at one point was politically based, and a lot of people within both clubs are still trying to perpetuate. But it does no good whatsoever to pigeon-hole or even to criticize based on things that not all supporters are in agreement over or even support.
Also, I completely disagree with saying that Madrid as a city represents Spanish nationalism and that Barcelona as a city represents Catalan progressivism. No. No and no. Madrid is a city and there are all kinds of people who live there. Yes, it is the capital of Spain and a lot of Catalans do feel that they are oppressed by Spain and Madrid as the central government, but to state that it is a fact that Madrid represents nationalism is incredibly ignorant and disrespectful, both to the people who live and work in Madrid and who may not support Real Madrid, and to the people in Barcelona who don’t believe that Madrid is oppressive.
