Fear And Self-Loathing In Austria

Normally when a city or country is selected to host a major international sporting event, that country feels an immense pride in doing so. I lived in Atlanta in 1990 when they were announced as winners of hosting the 96 Olympic Games, and it was insane- rallies, a tickertape parade, immense pride in hosting the world. You know, the norm.

An even bigger factor for nations hosting major international soccer tournaments is that they do not have to qualify but are given an automatic spot. This is a huge relief for even the powerful soccer nations, to not have to even deal with the possible humiliation of failing to qualify for a major tournament, a feat most recently achieved by England for this summer’s Euro 2008, which by the way is the world's third most watched sporting event after the World Cup and the Olympic Games.

Smaller nations on the other hand are typically overjoyed at the prospect, as their chances of qualifying are not normally as certain or expected. To wit, 16 teams compete in the European Championships, but there are 53 soccer playing nations in UEFA {Europe}. So if a smaller country can host and earn an automatic qualifying spot without having to play off and upset a few established powers over a 2 year qualifying campaign, then that country’s soccer fans would be absolutely thrilled to host such a tournament.

Apparently not so for Austria, one of the co-hosts for this summer’s European Championships, known as Euro2008 {Switzerland being the other}. Austria is not a soccer power, far from it, and rarely qualify for Euros {never before, actually} or World Cups, so you would think that their fans would be over the moon. In fact, quite the opposite is true. So much so that they actually want their team to withdraw from the tournament which they are hosting. And this isn’t some dude named Jan and his mates from the local pub, this is an organized movement with thousands and thousands of signatures on a petition to the national soccer federation, and they apparently have over 10,000 siggies and counting.

“WTF?!?!?” you ask? Well, Austria in their current iteration are bad. Very bad. So bad that it is extremely disconcerting for Austrian fans, who are so ashamed of their national team that they would like them to withdraw from playing in order to save themselves and the entire nation of Austria from extreme embarrassment. People are taking to calling Austria's Group A as the "Group Of Life" because other members of it will have such an easy time {in contrast to the "Group Of Death" at each tournament}

Seriously. Here’s their website. The best bits:

Your entering this site is no coincidence. It means you care about attractive football... In short: it means you love this great sport for the sheer beauty of it...

...However, it also means you fall into a dismal state of depression when watching a match featuring the Austrian national football team. For all those displays of true skill, on a field taken by our team, occur about as frequently as meteorite impacts...

...It cannot be denied: the performance of the Austrian team is an insult to your sense of aesthetics as well as to what you expect from this sport. Their participating in the EURO 2008 is to you a contradiction in itself. We understand.

Pretty epic stuff, and I can't remember another instance in my lifetime of such a "movement".

Duke college football fans, are you listening?