“Sporting Clube de PORTUGAL!!” was something I would get used to having shouted at me during my few days in Lisbon every time I mistakenly used the despised term “Sporting Lisbon.” Many times, during a casual conversation with the Torcida Verde Ultras, I would, through force of habit, stupidly refer to their beloved club as Sporting Lisbon, a name many of us are familiar with and a mistake I’m sure we all make. However, it is not the club’s name and never has been. The supporters of Os Leões (The Lions) will go to painstaking lengths to remind anyone who will listen of this fact. Sporting Clube de Portugal is a religion in this city, and the Torcida Verde Ultras are the defenders of that faith. When you are with them, you use the club’s correct name.
Sporting CP are a sports club who participate in a wide variety of sports including handball, volleyball and hockey but are mainly known for their success as a football team, having won 19 Portuguese league titles and 17 cup titles they are considered the third biggest team in one of Europe’s most renowned footballing nations.
“Since I can remember I’ve been going to the stadium with my grandmother, grandfather, father, uncle, mother and brother,” Sofia tells me. Sofia is a member of the Torcida Verde Ultras group who are the fanatical supporters of Sporting.
Ultras are the extremist supporter wing of a football club. Most clubs in Europe have one or several Ultras groups who go to vast lengths to support their club by painting elaborate choreographed displays, singing for the whole game, following their club home and away every week and occasionally engaging in violence with opposing fans. When most people envision Ultras, they envision it as a man’s world but that is slowly changing, just as the sport on the whole is changing.
In April 2022 the attendance record for a women’s football match was broken when 91,648 supporters packed into The Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona to…
Source link : https://www.footballparadise.com/torcia-verde-a-unique-pocket-of-football-and-lisbon/
Author : Ethan Rooney
Publish date : 2024-07-09 13:38:05
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