A look back before stepping forward

A look back before stepping forward

A look back before stepping forward
A look back before stepping forward “ By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez
”
The Premier League season is upon us.
At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next...
A look back before stepping forward “ By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez
”
The Premier League season is upon us.
At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next...
A look back before stepping forward “ By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez
”
The Premier League season is upon us.
At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next...
A look back before stepping forward “ By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez
”
The Premier League season is upon us.
At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next...
A look back before stepping forward “ By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez
”
The Premier League season is upon us.
At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next...

A look back before stepping forward

By Zack Goldman and Maxi Rodriguez

The Premier League season is upon us.

At long last, the world’s most popular circus of sport has returned, pitching a tent in our front yards and living rooms for the next nine months.

There will be passion, drama and genius painted on the pitch and the terraces, across the screens of our televisions and the pages of our dailies.

Premiership football will again return to Anfield, to Goodison, to Eastlands…

But let us not forget where it’s already been this summer.

From Los Angeles, to Sydney, to North Ferriby, the Premier League has traveled — and traveled in style.

Sold-out six-figure crowds abroad and domestic late-night television audiences turned out and tuned in to catch a glimpse of new signings and old friends, easing back into the whirlpool of club football after a summer spent in the deep end of the World Cup.

Overseas supporters, marooned a few flights and a few worlds away from their favorite clubs, could previously only root from afar and dream of watching their heroes play live.

This July, those dreams, for many, became reality.

It’s easy to be cynical about what modern football has become — fickle, distant, avaricious.

It’s an era dominated by gargantuan transfer fees, Sky TV, and £4 pies — an era in which even the most traditional top-flight football clubs have been transformed into global brands with players more spokesmen than footballers — an era in which profit-minded owners have assaulted crests, changed sacrosanct colors, and plastered investment banks, loan companies, and casinos across famous kits — an era in which a cornerstone of a local community for a century can be bankrupted and stripped away overnight.

And yet, despite those rightfully troubling sides of football’s modern sprawl, it’s also a global era that has opened up a whole new world of fandom.

It’s a fanaticism that’s easy to brush aside as plastic or ersatz until you see it in the flesh, hear the stories, listen to the passion.

From the 34-year old father who spent his childhood tracking his team through week’s-old newspapers shipped from abroad, to the teen who traded baseball cleats for soccer boots during primary school, and the family who carries on the tradition of their expat grandparents, the passion is just as authentic as the chants that emanate from fans fortunate enough to have a place in their side’s ground every week.

It’s clear that these supporters — who wake up at 4 a.m.to watch their club, who trek thousands of miles to watch a friendly, and who save up for a lifetime in hopes of one day visiting their footballing temple — are true supporters indeed. 

Photos courtesy of one of our favorite photographers, Ryann Torrero.