fever pitch

One thing I know for sure about being a fan is this: it is not a vicarious pleasure, despite all appearances to the contrary, and those who say that they would rather do than watch are missing the point.... When there is some kind of triumph, the pleasure does not radiate from the players outwards until it reaches the likes of us at the back of the terraces in a pale and diminished form; our fun is not a watery version of the team's fun ... The joy we feel on occasions like this is not a celebration of others' good fortune, but a celebration of our own; and when there is a disastrous defeat the sorrow that engulfs us is, in effect, self-pity, and anyone who wishes to understand how football is consumed must realise this above all things.

--Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch

“You are asking which is more important – Brazil or a U.S. invasion?,” one Haitian fan asked an American reporter in 1994. “We are hungry every day. We have problems every day. The Americans talk about invading every day. But we only have the World Cup every four years.”

-- Simon Kuper, Soccer Against the Enemy