Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T13:59:49.613Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Roma non dimentica i suoi figli’: love, sacrifice and emotional attachment to football heroes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Matthew Klugman  and
Francesco Ricatti
Matthew Klugman*
Affiliation:
Victoria University, Melbourne
Francesco Ricatti
Affiliation:
University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
*
∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Italian football is renowned as much for the passion of its spectators as it is for the quality of its players, yet these spectators are understudied. Those studies that have been conducted have generally focused on the problems of violence and racism associated with some of the more extreme supporters, the so-called ultras. This paper aims to complement that research by analysing a different aspect of the passions of Italian spectators, namely the emotional ties they create with particular players upon whom they confer a special, hero-like status. Our interest lies not in questioning the legitimacy of this status, but rather in looking at what the history of these emotional attachments reveals of the football supporters themselves, and of their relationship to the football club they support. This paper focuses on the intense relationship supporters of Associazione Sportiva Roma have had with two key players: Agostino Di Bartolomei and Francesco Totti. Drawing on a large body of texts including graffiti, newspapers, talkback radio, popular accounts and internet fan forums, along with psychoanalysis and classical mythology, the authors trace the way each of these players was granted a specific heroic status that evolved and changed over time, and how the passions they provoked became part of the ever transforming culture and identity of Rome. In particular we explore how the tales and cultural texts devoted to football players can reveal something of the emotional worlds and experiences of a city's inhabitants, and the way local memories and identities are remembered, retold and forgotten through passionate engagement with the football players who represent them on the broader national and international stage.

Keywords

footballA.S. Romaheroescelebritiesaffectemotions
Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Special issue: Emotions , May 2012 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Argentieri, L. 1980a. Un trionfo per Falcao. Corriere dello sport, August 11.Google Scholar
Argentieri, L. 1980b. Falcao. Corriere dello sport, August 12.Google Scholar
Argentieri, L. 1984. Di Bartolomei: Con me non sono stati corretti. Corriere dello sport, June 12.Google Scholar
Barnhart, R., ed. 1995. The Barnhart concise dictionary of etymology. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Bartolozzi, A., ed. 2010. Capitano mio capitano: Storia della A.S. Roma attraverso i suoi capitani coraggiosi. Bergamo: Larus/Sony Music.Google Scholar
Bianconi, G. and Salerno, A. 2010. L'ultima partita: Vittoria e sconfitta di Agostino Di Bartolomei. Rome: Fandango.Google Scholar
Brighenti, A. 2010. At the wall: Graffiti writers, urban territoriality, and the public domain. Space and Culture 13:315–32.Google Scholar
Burke, P. 2005. Is there a cultural history of emotions? In Representing emotions: New connections in the histories of art, music and medicine, ed. Gouk, P. and Hills, H., 35–47. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Carroll, J. 2001. The western dreaming: The western world is dying for want of a story. Sydney: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Carroll, J. 2008. Ego and soul: The modern west in search of meaning. 2nd ed. Carlton North, Vic: Scribe Publications.Google Scholar
Cascioli, L. 2007. La Roma: Una leggenda. Rome: Il Parnaso.Google Scholar
Cashmore, E. 2006. Celebrity/culture. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Catapano, A. 2008. Ti amo: (la) Roma dritta al cuore. Rome: Limina.Google Scholar
Chmielewska, E. 2009. Writing on the ruins or graffiti as a design gesture. In The wall and the city, ed. Brighenti, A., 31–46. Trento: professionaldreamers.Google Scholar
Dal Lago, A. and Di Biasi, R. 1994. Football and identity in Italy. In Football, violence, and social identity, ed. Giulianotti, R., Bonney, N. and Hepworth, M., 73–89. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
De Biasi, R. and Lanfranchi, P. 1997. The importance of difference: Football identities in Italy. In Entering the field: New perspectives on world football, ed. Armstrong, G.R. and Giulianotti, , 87–104. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Douglas, T. 1995. Scapegoats: Transferring blame. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Featherstone, M. 1992. The heroic life and everyday life. Theory, Culture & Society 9:159–82.Google Scholar
Ferrajolo, L. 1984a. Quante accuse a Falcao! Corriere dello sport, June 1.Google Scholar
Ferrajolo, L. 1984b. Di Bartolomei deluso. Corriere dello sport, June 28.Google Scholar
Foot, J. 2006. Calcio: A history of Italian football. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Freud, S. 1955a. Totem and taboo: Some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics [1913]. In The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 8, trans. Freud, S., ed. Strachey, J., 1–164. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Freud, S. 1955b. Group psychology and the analysis of the ego [1921]. In The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 18, trans, and ed. Strachey, J., 67–144. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Gorton, K. 2007. Theorizing emotion and affect: Feminist engagements. Feminist Theory 8, no. 3:333–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, K. 2004. Terrace heroes: The life and times of the 1930s professional footballer. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hastings, R. 1984. Juve is magic: The anglicisms of Italian football graffiti. Italian Studies 39:91–102.Google Scholar
Holmes, S., and Redmond, S., eds. 2006. Framing celebrity: New directions in celebrity culture. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Klugman, M. 2006. Emotional devotees: Approaching the inner world of Australian rules football fans. In Football fever: Moving the goalposts, ed. Nicholson, M., Stewart, B. and Hess, R., 207–22. Hawthorn, Victoria: Maribyrnong Press.Google Scholar
Klugman, M. 2008. ‘Each time I'm reminded of it, I feel as though I need therapy’: Australian football, tragedies and the question of catharsis. Traffic 10:97–122.Google Scholar
Klugman, M. 2009. Passion play: Love, hope and heartbreak at the footy. Melbourne: Hunter Publishers.Google Scholar
Lattanzio, F. 2007. L'AS Roma e la città: i luoghi di un amore. In Un solo urlo: Roma!, ed. Santarelli, N., 49–78. Rome: Reality Book.Google Scholar
P.A. 1980. Falcao (dicono in Brasile) alla Roma per 4 miliardi. La Stampa, July 26.Google Scholar
Pagliari, A. 1985. ‘Agostino? Sa giocare solo con la lingua’. Corriere dello sport, February 25.Google Scholar
Penn, R. 2005. Cathedrals of sport: Football stadia in contemporary England. Soccer Review 4:27–30.Google Scholar
Reddy, W. 2001. The navigation of feeling: A framework for the history of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ricatti, F. 2010. La Roma: Soccer and identity in Rome. Annali d'Italianistica 28:217–36.Google Scholar
Rosenwein, B. 2002. Worrying about emotions in history. American Historical Review 107, no. 3:821–45.Google Scholar
Roversi, A. and Balestri, C. 2000. Italian ultras today: Change or decline?. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 8, no. 2:183–99.Google Scholar
Ruberg, W. 2009. Interdisciplinarity and the history of emotions. Cultural and Social History 6, no. 4:507–16.Google Scholar
Smart, B. 2005. The sport star: The cultural politics of sporting celebrities. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Tasselli, D. 1989. Roma: Il fascino dell'Olimpico. Milan: Rizzoli.Google Scholar
Testa, A. and Armstrong, G. 2008. Words and actions: Italian ultras and neo-fascism. Social Identities 14, no. 4:473–90.Google Scholar
Testa, A. and Armstrong, G. 2010. Football, fascism and fandom: The ultras of Italian football. London: A&C Black.Google Scholar
Torromeo, D. 1985. Di Bartolomei secondo round. Corriere dello sport, February 26.Google Scholar
Valdiserri, L. 2010. Totti non torna indietro: ‘A trigoria sono triste’. Corriere della sera.it. http://roma.corriere.it/roma/notizie/sport/11_gennaio_11/faccia-faccia-ranieri-totti-luca-valdiserri-181235709580.shtml.Google Scholar
Venditti, A. 2008. Prefazione. In Ti amo: (la) Roma dritta al cuore, Catapano, A., vii–viii. Rome: Limina.Google Scholar
Zani, B. and Kirchler, E. 1991. When violence overshadows the spirit of sporting competition: Italian football fans and their clubs. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 1, no. 1:5–21.Google Scholar