Soccer is growing in Nashville.
GEODIS Park has given the game a major stage. Supporters’ groups are growing. The songs are getting louder, the displays bigger and the rivalries stronger. As the sport grows here, Nashville is developing a soccer culture of its own.
That’s worth paying attention to.
Because culture isn’t only about how loudly we support our team. It’s also about what we decide is acceptable in the name of supporting it.
When rivalry crosses the line
During the Saturday, Aug. 15, Nashville SC-Inter Miami match at GEODIS Park, supporters displayed a massive banner depicting Lionel Messi wearing a wedding dress and embracing FIFA President Gianni Infantino, portrayed as his groom.
I wasn’t at the match. Like many others, I encountered images of the banner afterward
as they circulated online.
The message seemed to accuse FIFA of favoritism, but it did so through personal humiliation.
Supporters have countless ways to accuse FIFA of favoring Messi. Mock trophies. Question refereeing decisions. Criticize FIFA. Boo Messi every time he touches the ball.
That’s sports.
But portraying an opposing player as the bride in a fabricated intimate relationship with a football executive takes the criticism somewhere else.
So where is the line between rivalry and degradation?
What Nashville SC's policies allow
GEODIS Park already has rules governing banners and supporter displays. Its published policies say banners, flags and signs must be in “good taste as determined by stadium security.” For recognized supporter groups, flags and apparel must also not be “offensive in nature.” Certain supporter items also require advance approval from Nashville SC event management.
Was this banner reviewed in advance?
Did it meet Nashville SC’s standard of “good taste”?
Does Nashville SC consider portraying an opposing player this way acceptable supporter conduct?
And if it does, where exactly is the boundary?
The soccer culture Nashville is building
Those questions matter because their answers determine what kind of soccer culture we are developing in Nashville.
American sports have long held up an ideal of sportsmanship alongside fierce competition.
We love our rivalries. We defend our teams. We root for the underdog. We fill stadiums wearing our colors and believe until the final second that our team can pull off the impossible. But at our best, we can also recognize greatness when greatness is wearing the other team’s jersey.
We don’t always live up to those ideals. But that doesn’t make the ideal irrelevant.
The ideal matters.
Soccer culture in America draws on traditions from around the world. That’s part of what makes it exciting. But embracing a global game doesn’t require embracing every behavior associated with it.
We get to make choices.
We can be loud without being degrading. Our rivalries can be fierce without becoming personal. We can make an opposing player miserable for 90 minutes because we desperately want our team to beat his, while still recognizing the basic dignity of the person wearing that jersey.
None of that diminishes the game. It elevates it.
What we tolerate today will become a part of tomorrow
So the question raised by that banner isn’t whether Lionel Messi needs defending. The best to ever do it certainly doesn’t need an opinion column to protect him from opposing supporters.
The question is what we are building.
As soccer grows in Nashville, a supporter culture is growing with it. What we tolerate now will help define what that culture becomes.
We should want the noise, the rivalries, the packed supporter sections and the loyalty that makes people care about a result long after the final whistle.
But we should want sportsmanship, too.
There is a line between rivalry and humiliation.
As Nashville develops its own soccer culture, now is the time to decide where that line is, before crossing it becomes part of the culture itself.
Susan Guerra is a Nashville-area resident and lifelong sports fan who believes great rivalries and great sportsmanship can coexist.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What a Lionel Messi banner revealed about Nashville soccer | Opinion
