Burcu Kapu examines the game in her book “Futbol,” published by Ayrıntı Yayınları, not only through the lens of the field, tactics and the score, but also in terms of human behavior and social relations. Combining her background in biology and sociology with her experience in sports media, publishing and podcasting, Kapu describes football as a “laboratory of human behavior.” In her view, while 22 players compete on the field, millions in the stands bring fear, anger, a sense of belonging, a sense of justice and childhood memories to the game; reactions such as celebrating, getting angry, looking for someone to blame and creating heroes offer important clues about people.
Kapu also draws a parallel between supporting a team and falling in love. People voluntarily become attached to a team whose outcome they cannot control; whether the team wins or loses affects their mood. Describing football, whose rules are clear but whose outcome is uncertain, as “a chaos with defined boundaries,” Kapu argues that it is a condensed form of life and human relationships. She notes that fandom offers the modern person—crowded yet essentially lonely on social media—color, language, a past, a story and a sense of belonging.
Why it matters
The book’s approach treats football not merely through the decisions and results on the pitch, but as a social sphere in which the emotions and forms of attachment that emerge in the stands are examined. This perspective is of interest not only to those who follow football, but also to readers seeking to understand the relationship between fandom and belonging, justice, collective memory and loneliness. The effect of team loyalty on a person’s mood opens up a discussion of how voluntarily attaching oneself to an uncontrollable outcome is reflected in human behavior. Football is thus placed within a framework in which individual reactions and social relationships can be observed together. However, it remains unclear how this approach would explain differences in experience among different groups of fans and to what extent fandom transforms feelings of loneliness.