THE POLITICS OF SOCCER - The Fan

"A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties."

Karl Marx

Flamengo has been called the team of blacks, favelados and the outlaws, and that is mainly the truth. Flamengo is a popular, mass-based team, and, in that way, is it also a very particular commodity.

Many South-American leftists scorn soccer with the same sentiment they scorn at religion. They often paraphrase Marx, by calling soccer the "opiate of the masses". Granted, soccer share many characteristics with religion, and has a very similar pull into people's psyche. Sometimes it can surpass the pull of religion, because while religion promises a heaven after death, soccer delivers heaven every time the ball escapes the clutches of the devilish goalie.

This pseudo-religious fervor is increased if you think that soccer is a terrible fetishized commodity, yet it value is not, as most commodities are under capitalism, measured by its market value - at least not to the fans.

The team is, like one's nation, the ultimate commodity. More that the nation, the team has a more powerful mystique; one's nationality is a perchance, the team is an allegiance of choice.in the nation and in the team the individual is melted in a powerful we, a transcendental being that is more powerful than anything that can be a threat.

They never win, we do. In the team, more than in the nation, one can abandon a powerless existence to become part of something magnificent.