Portugal. A country without sports culture
As Portuguese, we like to consider Portugal a developed country and a power when it comes to sport. The truth is that, in fact, we have evidence given in different modalities. An example of this is the conquest of the European Football Championship, in 2016, the title of Futsal World Champions, in 2021, and the various medals by Pedro Pichardo, Telma Monteiro, Nélson Évora, among others, at the Olympic Games.
But is the fact that Portugal is successful, in different ways from sport, in itself, a guarantee that it is possible in a country where the culture is diverse? The title of this article reveals my position on this issue. The reality is that, as much as we want to present the image of a sports developed nation, we are not. Why?
In his last game as a professional player, Zé Castro, captain of Académica, left a reflection: “in terms of football, we are still a very ignorant country. There are fewer and fewer people who like football and more people who just want to win”. The words of a 39-year-old athlete who is well acquainted with the reality of sport in Portugal corroborate the idea that in our country there is no sports culture, but a victory culture.
Everyone wants to be in the club that wins. Everyone that your club is the best and that it has more achievements. Why does this happen? Is it out of an inordinate love, the consequence of which is to transform the fanatic’s vision to the point where he is only able to exalt the qualities of the symbol he supports and despise the others? Also, but not only.
The feeling of being an active part of an achievement, even if only as an adept, makes us feel self-fulfilled. And we strongly believe that this is our success. It is inherent to human beings to be better because we are something better. Celebrating a title for our team is more than that. It’s celebrating what our rivals couldn’t. More than winning, it is being able to tell others that you have won.
This explains why, in Portugal, the vast majority of the population is divided into three clubs – the only big ones here. Not only the population, but a large part of the media restricts the football theme to three emblems, as if everything else were the long landscape of a national panorama that wants to be tripartite. As if all the others were just small clubs.
Small clubs that, because they don’t celebrate every week, are not, according to the common aficionado, worthy of representing him. Because we are all the embodiment of excellence in everything we do. Our ego is capable of surviving defeat and that is why, in Portugal, we witness the metamorphosis of the passion for sport into a passion for reason.
With rare exceptions, only three Portuguese groups manage to fill their stadium. This, in turn, gives rise to a clear lack of competitiveness in League Bwin, where there are clubs with a budget of 180 million euros and others with just three. Perhaps it was not the clubs that should be considered small, but the mentality and competitive culture in Portugal.
We envy English football and its stadiums filled with fervent fans. From the first bedroom to the upper level, there is no room in the land of Suajesta that is not filled with an imposing structure that is not human. Unthinkable in our country. But what is the reason for the discrepancy between the way of experiencing sport in England and Portugal?
More than the difference in the centralization of television rights, the big difference is the people. The locality of the English people makes it locally located 700 kilometers away. It doesn’t matter whether the clubs in Manchester or London are the best and the ones with the most glorious history. In Sheffield, the emblems of Sheffield reign supreme.
In Portugal, such a phenomenon would be utopian. When three people ask someone, in ours, about their club affiliation, only three countries attend to reservations. And who will certainly avoid such a dog or not face a recurring question: “but what about the big ones?”.
As far as sports are concerned, we are all specialists in the most varied sports, once the Olympic Games begin. We all understand canoeing and know the rules of fencing and judo by heart.
But the truth is that we dedicate our time to watching something that is off the radar of football. We do not know the reality of sport in Portugal and the training conditions of our athletes. However, when the Olympic Games arrive, we do not expect or demand less than winning medals. Because victory is all that matters in a country where sport takes a back seat.
It is necessary to rethink the sports culture in Portugal. More than that, it is necessary to cultivate it. After all, what is the sports culture of a country where the most commented and scrutinized team is the referee? What sports culture can exist in a nation where clubs like SC Braga, Vitória SC and Boavista FC are called small?