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The Champions League's Loud Silence
A brief thought about the new Champions League’s format, without nostalgia
The delicate notes of the Champions League’s anthem, the camera passing over the concentrated faces of the players and finally the roar: the whole stadium waiting for that moment, THE CHAMPIONS !!!! Of all the pagan rituals of contemporary football, that of the Champions League anthem is perhaps the most solemn, observed and respected because it brings together all the players, the referees, the clubs, the UEFA and precisely in the final roar the fans who in that scream express the prayer and the hope of becoming the actual Champions.
The 19-20 Champions League enters its unprecedented final phase in Lisbon and the liberating scream that relieved the tension before every kick-off will be missed more than anything else. Among the protagonists mentioned above, the only ones physically excluded for reasons of force majeure are the fans and this will make - for better or for worse - the Champions League that will be assigned in the next month.
“Let's not forget that the ultras have also transformed the show into stadiums. Before their arrival the only show was limited to the field, for five decades the show has also been in the stands. " Sébastien Louis - French sociologist who studied the Ultras subculture in Europe - in one of his works defines the fans as "the other protagonists of football". More than the penalty of Salah who decided the last final between Liverpool and Tottenham, the most used images on the social media feeds and in the news of the news were those of the Reds fans in tears, while with outstretched arms they showed the scarves and they sang:
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
The show was in the brief but significant reversal of attention: the players who admire the fans and fans who become protagonists. The great international stage of the Champions League as it offers visibility to the young promises on the field, it does so also to the noble supporters who in recent years have been relegated to the periphery of European football. From the bend of Olympiakos and their Balkan twins of the Red Star, to stadiums in Turkey, without forgetting the yellow wall of the Westfalenstadion or the green stands of Celtic Park in Glasgow.
The Champions League has been used by the fans as a stage of honor for choirs and choreography, but also to protest and make their weight felt within the great football circus on issues such as the prohibitive cost of tickets in stadiums, the other great absent from this Champions.
Yes, because although the two structures that will host the competition in Lisbon - the Da Luz Stadium and the Josè Alvalade Stadium - are of an exceptional level, a component of the charm of the Champions League is the pilgrimage of the fans to the various cathedrals of European football. From the beams of San Siro to the dizzying stands of Santiago Bernabeu, passing through the Theatre of Dreams in Manchester and contemporary masterpieces such as the Allianz Arena in Monaco, the stadium has the function of welcoming the protagonists and entering right into the toponymy of sports history European.
The most tragic event in the history of European football is linked to the fans and stadiums of the Champions League: the massacre of the Heysel during the final between Juventus and Liverpool in which 39 people died, including 32 Italian, and were injured beyond 600. It was the watershed for the construction of new generation stadiums, and the worst way for fans to claim their presence and importance in a sporting event.
This year's Final Eight will be free from fans and stadiums and many are wondering what will become of football without these two protagonists. It is easy to blow in the conservative wind of those who do not want to compromise with contemporary society and are satisfied with the regrets of the "old-time football", that made of simple and genuine values, but those who celebrate forget that it was also the place where racism and arrogance were more than allowed. It will be alienating to see the players fight for the most important trophy in the midst of the deafening void of the stadium, hoping that UEFA will not be hoping for imaginative solutions made of recorded choirs and digital projections.
The absence of cheering must be testified, it must weigh on the match, to have a clear proof that football without fans is stripped of that epic patina of clash between factions and tragically reduced to what it is: a pure act of sports confrontation between two contenders. It will be a different Champions League, exceptional in the purest sense of the word. Melancholy is a feeling that football fans know well, but it must not be the prerequisite with which to face a Champions League from the sofa in front of the most worrying experience that the globalized world has ever faced. In football without fans some of the aesthetes of the field and tactics are satisfied by hearing the indications of the coaches to watch the team's movements bend to the words shouted from the bench; others get a better look at the shirts, still others are fascinated by the noises of football. Those who love football will find a way to do it even so, without forgetting that life is there in the stands shouting with eyes closed: THE CHAMPIONS !!!!!!!
