Product Code Database
Tifo () is the phenomenon whereby tifosi of a sports team make a visual display of any choreographed flag, sign or banner in the stands of a stadium, mostly as part of an association football match.
Tifo are most commonly seen in important matches, local derby, and rivalries, and although the tradition originated at club teams, some national teams also have fans that organise tifo on a regular basis. Tifo is primarily arranged by ultras or a supporter club to show their love to the club, but are sometimes sponsored or arranged by the club itself.
Tifosi () is a fandom of a sports team, especially those that make up a tifo.
Tifo, while highly prevalent in Europe, has become more widespread and more common in all parts of the world where association football is played. It gained popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s among Major League Soccer teams in the United States, with some supporters' groups spending up to $10,000 for materials. The Portland Timbers–Seattle Sounders rivalry has featured some of the largest and most elaborate tifos in U.S. soccer.
The term is derived from Italian tifoso, meaning "typhus or typhoid fever patient" (the two illnesses were often confused, and both were called tifo in Italy), referring to the "" behaviour of the most dedicated fans. The Times of Malta pointed out that the English term "fan" sounds similarly odd to Italian ears, as to them fanatico usually is only used in the context of religious fanaticism. Journalist Birgit Schönau traces the term tifosi back to the 1920s, a time when football fever was spreading in Italy and typhoid fever was also still prevalent in the poorer parts of the country.Simpson, P., Hesse, U. (2013:296). Who Invented the Stepover? And Other Crucial Football Conundrums. United Kingdom: Profile Books.
Other sources link it to Greek τῦφος ( typhos, "smoke"), which is also related etymologically to the disease, but historian John Foot states that a derivation from the disease is more plausible.Percy, M. (2016:196). The Salt of the Earth: Religious Resilience in a Secular Age. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.
A fictional depiction of a tifoso in football is shown in Tifosi, an Italian film released in 1999.
Passionate supporters of Italian cycling teams and cyclists are called "the tifosi".
The tifosi provide Formula One with a sea of red filling the grandstands at the Italian Grand Prix. One of the most common tifosi sights is the display of an enormous Ferrari flag in the grandstands during Formula One weekends at every race circuit, with especially large contingents showing up in Ferrari livery at home and nearby European tracks. A similar sight could be observed in former years during the San Marino race, which was held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari near the town of Imola, 80 km (49.7 mi) east of the Ferrari factory in Maranello.
The tifosi in Italy have been known to actually cheer for a non-Italian driver in a Ferrari passing an Italian driver in another make of car. At the 1983 San Marino Grand Prix, the crowd at Imola cheered long and loud when Italian Riccardo Patrese crashed his Brabham out of the lead of the race only 6 laps from home, handing Frenchman Patrick Tambay the win in his Ferrari. Patrese himself had only passed Tambay for the lead half a lap earlier.
One driver who never actually drove for Ferrari but is supported by the tifosi is Frenchman Jean-Louis Schlesser. He drove for the Williams team at the 1988 Italian Grand Prix at Monza substituting for an ill Nigel Mansell. On lap 49 of the 51 lap race, Schlesser was unwittingly involved in the incident at the Variante del Rettifilo chicane that took out the leading McLaren-Honda of Ayrton Senna, fittingly handing Ferrari's Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto an emotional 1–2 Italian Grand Prix result only a month after the death of Enzo Ferrari. Berger's win handed McLaren their only loss of the 16-race season.
The tifosi stuck by Ferrari during the struggles in the early 1990s, where Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi each won one race, as the front-running teams were McLaren, Williams, and Benetton. The mid-1990s increase in the ranks of the tifosi can be directly traced to the arrival of Michael Schumacher who joined Ferrari in 1996, after winning two drivers' titles with Benetton, bringing over key personnel like Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne. Schumacher drove for Ferrari until his first retirement at the conclusion of the 2006 season, leading the team to six Constructors' Championship from 1999–2004 and personally winning five drivers' championships.
When Ferrari's Charles Leclerc won at Monza 2019, which was the first time for the team since 2010, a massive crowd of tifosi went to the podium to celebrate the victory. As revealed by David Croft during the podium celebration, there is a strained relationship between the tifosi and Mercedes, who have won in Monza from the start of the turbo hybrid era in 2014 to 2018. Whenever a Mercedes won the Italian GP, or made the podium, the tifosi would boo at the driver.
|
|
