The treachery of patriotism

It’s time I got something off my chest, something that has truly disgusted me at times.

Around this time every year, and more so once every four years, the interesting mindset of patriotism, and tribalism to an extent, gets thrown into question.

Representative sport can throw these sort of allegiances up into the air, and many people sometimes ponder how some people can even consider doing so.

Within Australia, the most common example would probably be regarding State of Origin, possibly the most tribal of all representative sporting competitions, at least in our eyes.

Many people ridicule others for supporting the state in which they may have never set foot in.

In fact, despite everyone but my father having lived in NSW all their lives, I’m the only one in my family that supports the Blues.

But when the FIFA World Cup rolls around every four years, I also get a firsthand glimpse of what can be dubbed as the treachery of patriotism.

Until 2006, Australians could never follow their own country at what is widely regarded as the world’s biggest sporting stage, which naturally left many of us following our heritage, with Australia being the multicultural pot it is.

Over the years I’ve noticed those close to me follow the exploits of Croatia, Paraguay and England, just to name a few, but where I grew up, it was all about Italy.

The 1998 and 2002 World Cups were the tournaments of my childhood, and I basically lived them vicariously through my older brother, who of course supported the Italians.

That’s not to say he didn’t follow football in Australia.

I distinctly remember the disappointment he showed when Australia couldn’t get past Uruguay in their attempts to qualify for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, and he was one of the first people I knew to get decked out in the Green and Gold when the Socceroos arrived in Kaiserslautern.

And while I remember my heartbroken feeling when the Italians were knocked out by a Korean golden goal in 2002, Australia would always get the priority.

That’s why Australia’s knockout fixture against Italy in 2006 was such a big event in my family, and their loss felt even more heartbreaking than Italy’s four years earlier.

But this is when I really started to notice the treachery of patriotism. The next day at school, it was pretty much painted blue.

Other students were delighted at Australia’s loss, despite many of them being ecstatic just days earlier when they had put three goals past the hapless Japanese defence.

Since then, every four years, I have become more aware of the treachery of patriotism.

In 2010, a couple friends and I were watching Australia versus Ghana in the corner of a club, when a man walks up to us, drink in hand, and duly says, “who’s playing?”

He then takes a good look at the screen before adding, “Oh… F*** the Aussies. Forza Italia!”

Despite my heritage, and that I have followed Italy over the years in European tournaments, you wouldn’t believe how delighted I was when the Azzurri couldn’t get past the All Whites of New Zealand, and succumbed to last place of their group in South Africa.

Again, despite having moved away for university since the last World Cup, this year I had still noticed the taunts from people back home, calling out how bad Australia is and how they’d have no chance of winning on social media. Minutes later I would see posts saying that the Australian players were impressive.

One such post was noting how bad a team must be if Fernando Torres scores against you, which is pretty interesting when you notice that Torres scored a goal in Spain’s 4-0 drubbing of the Italians in the Euro 2012 final.

All this from people who, according to a cousin and I, probably couldn’t name the cities from which their forefathers came to Australia.

I guess these people copped a lot of flak in their youth, including myself, for playing ‘wogball’, and now they may believe it’s their turn to dish it out.

For people who actually lived in these nations – like my father, or one of my friend’s parents who still supports Paraguay, or the Englishmen that I played club football with back home – their support is understandable.

It’s the people who grew up in Australia, who criticise our governments and then continue to taunt other Australians for following their national team that really get on my nerves.

Those who profess their love for another country, while trying to say what’s wrong with the one that they live in, are the ones who commit treachery of patriotism.

It’s part of the reason why I am always proud of our national team, because it’s something they’ve had to deal with as well. Players such as Josip Šimunić went one further and actually played for another nation, something many Socceroos could have done as well, but decided to put our country on The World Game’s map instead.