My Little Experiment with the Big Derby
So, I got this wild idea a while back. I really wanted to dig deep into the whole Corinthians versus São Paulo thing. You know, not just the scores or who played well, but what it really means to the folks involved. My plan, my “practice” if you will, was to try and capture the real human side of it all. Sounded pretty simple at first, I thought.
I kicked things off by trying to chat with some of the really hardcore supporters. And wow, that was something else. For a lot of them, it wasn’t just about cheering for a team. It was like their whole identity, a family tradition, or even some kind of lifelong battle. I told myself, okay, passion is passion, I can understand that. We all have things we’re passionate about.
My next step was to see if I could find any common ground between the two sets of fans. I figured, away from the stadium noise, they’re all just people, right? I even tried to set up a small, casual meeting. Just a few fans from each side, before a game, to talk. Just talk. That turned out to be a really bad idea.
- There was this one Corinthians fan who just went on and on about all their past championships, like he’d won them himself.
- Then a São Paulo supporter kept steering the conversation to money and club finances, as if that was the only thing that proved a club’s worth.
- And the second someone brought up a disputed referee call from a match years ago, the whole thing just exploded.
It wasn’t a chat; it was a shouting contest. I felt completely useless, like I was trying to negotiate world peace with a water pistol. My little project, my whole “practice” of trying to find that human connection, just fell apart right there. I saw people, who might even be neighbors or work together, practically at each other’s throats over a football game.
And that’s when it really hit me – this rivalry isn’t solely about football. It’s way bigger than that. It’s wrapped up in who people are, where they feel they belong, and sometimes, it’s just plain old tribalism, us against them. The audio I recorded? Mostly just shouting and angry rants. Those deep, thoughtful human stories I was hoping to find? They were buried under all the noise and the ancient grudges.
This whole experience actually made me rethink a much larger project I had been cooking up. I was dreaming of doing a whole series on famous rivalries, thinking I could be the guy to show how sport can bring people together. Ha! After my Corinthians and São Paulo experiment, I realized I was being pretty naive. It was a tough pill to swallow. I’d already sunk some of my own cash into new recording gear for it, taken time off my day job, the works. My partner wasn’t exactly thrilled when I had to tell them the grand “rivalry series” was dead in the water.
I ended up just putting the whole idea on the shelf. For a good while after that, I couldn’t even watch a match without feeling a bit uneasy. It took me quite some time to just sit back and enjoy a game for the game’s sake again. I guess my “practice” taught me more about people than about football, and not always the good stuff. Sometimes, you just have to accept that some things are too heated to mess with, especially if you’re just armed with good intentions and a microphone. That was a lesson learned, for sure.
