Someone on a general forum I hang out at posted a thread asking: Why do you support the team(s) you do? Interesting question, especially if you follow several sports in several countries. There are three three main (if not exclusive) routes for me:

1) Local patriotism
2) Fabulous play by the team
3) A player

So how does that apply to the teams I still carry around in my psyche?

'I never really cared about compatriot Eyal Berkovic's teams, cause I can't stand the bast**d'


Mets, Jets, Knicks, Rangers (to the very limited extent I care): Rabid New Yorkism (thank goodness the rest of the US has already resumed hating us... )

AC Milan: Fabulous, sport-saving play, unequalled ever in quality by any European club or nation (including the great, beloved Dutch teams). In the late 80s I actually committed sports-treason for them, defecting from Juventus. I couldn't help it. It was like I asked the gods to save the game and they actually did.

Ajax Amsterdam: The divine Johan Cruyff (and the scoring god Marco van Basten after him, and the Jewish connection).

In Spain I initially liked Real Madrid because of Juanito, Hugo Sanchez and later Emilio Butragueño, As I learned about the politics and history involved, I found myself less able to root for Real over Barca. Not that I've become a Blaugranista, but I prefer them over the whites now, especially after the “We're a football club / oh no, we're a fashion imprint and T-shirt selling business” Galacticos period. I used to root for Celta Vigo when home-boy Haim Revivo was there. Conversely, I never really cared about compatriot Eyal Berkovic's teams, cause I can't stand the bast**d.

In France I simply dropped PSG, whom I adopted as a child, because I got tired of caring about a team with one of the worst skinhead crowds in all of Europe. I mean, those morons bark at their own black players.

In my current country of residence, Israel, I like Hapoel Lod (currently in the second-best division and known as Bnei Lod now) because it was the first town I lived in here and they gave me a night of pure, unadulterated magic by winning the cup in 1984 (they were top-flight back then). I also support Bnei Sachnin from the Premier Division for political reasons (underprivileged minority team), even though last time they were in the top division they really played a brutal and unsavory game - as weak teams facing relegation often do. They also won the Cup a few years back. I was happy and wrote a celebratory column for Israel's leading portal, but nothing in the same universe with that May night in '1984.

When I was a soccer-diseased boy, I had a favorite team in every league in Europe (the smaller, pre-fall-of-USSR number of states) and in several elsewhere – and I knew what each was doing. Now, at 37, I only really care abut Lod, Milan and Ajax (and about the Jets, Knicks and Mets, in that order). Some teams I've dropped totally along the way for various reasons, and some I've just stopped pretending to care about them or their leagues.

I picked the Jets over the Giants late in the 90s, after being an all-purpose homer before that, because I preferred the Jets game under the Tuna (aka Coach Bill Parcells). I like the vertical game and the great Rams teams of the turn of the century were my second favorite team throughout the three years they were fab. I guess making the AFC title game in 1998 and the Miracle in the Meadowlands sealed my being a Jets fan.

Mets over Yankees because that's what my father liked. Horrible thing to do to a child, if you think about it .

Later my father switched to pinstripes cause he was disgusted by how the Mets treated Tom Sever in the late 70s. I had just moved to Israel with mom, missed that whole affair and stayed Blue and Orange.

That's pretty much it. Why do you like the teams you do? Is it just hometown pride, a player you loved for long enough to be stuck with his club? Something else?