Celebrating goals, victories, and titles is the apex of football. There isn’t much to argue with about that truth. On the other hand, the good old Breton sport would never have become the social, cultural, and media phenomenon it is today if that were the only reason for thousands of people to gather around a rectangle of grass of about 7,000 square meters.
Football is, above all, identity. It is belonging. It is, perhaps, the space where we can still exercise our most tribal instincts; which, unfortunately, also carries its miseries with it. And it is because of all that that there are still, in every corner of the planet, stadiums and rustic pitches, with a tiny crowd, in fixtures in the lower divisions, far from any spotlight.
It is like that with the Suburbana, in Curitiba. After all, what makes someone leave their home on a Saturday afternoon to attend an amateur football match, in a division equivalent to the seventh or eighth tier of the Brazilian football pyramid? It’s not the quality of the game; it’s not the cinematic experience of a FIFA-standard stadium; not even the No. 10 signed for an exorbitant amount of money. It is, precisely, the sense of belonging.
According to psychology, belonging is a basic human need. We need to be directly connected to a group of people or even to a cause that, necessarily, is also connected with other people. Football provides that to us in a visceral way.
The Suburbana, like any other competition, goes far beyond the matches; far beyond the 90 minutes. And that sense of belonging manifests itself in different ways across the neighborhoods of Curitiba.
Most immediately, there is the connection with the communities. In the traditional Trieste and Iguaçu, the historical relationship with the Italian immigrant community; in Fortaleza and Vila Sandra, the representation of working-class urban hubs. With very rare exceptions, each club flies a flag that represents hundreds and even thousands of people in their respective neighborhoods.
On the chain-link fences or in the concrete of the stands, each place’s identity is expressed in the details. At União Ahú, the same faces, the same looks every weekend; a more intimate, almost discreet way of living football. At Pilarzinho, the opposite: full stands, the sound of the drum section, the smoke from the flares; it is football culture in its pure state. And each club has its own way of living.
In every stadium, whatever its profile, belonging also manifests itself in the little rituals. In the steak sandwich, in the post-match pagode, in the kitman’s superstition, in the casual chat of the fan with the team’s star, with the coach and even with the club president. Living the Suburbana is to live football in a way that you just don’t experience anymore on the big stages.
Belonging, of course, is not something exclusive to those on the outside of the touchlines. Even in a semi-professionalized Suburbana, with money having an ever greater say, we can still see those who wear the shirt of the club from the neighborhood where they live or who kiss their clubs’ badge with true love.
It has been this way since the 1940s. Being from Curitiba — or being in Curitiba — almost obligatorily involves standing on the sidelines of a suburban football pitch. Because living football is being who you are; but never in solitude.
