In protest, Ultras in Florence once went to a district league club. Today, CS Lebowski, the fans’ club, is an important project – including a former international player.
The Ultras are still singing in the stadium. That may be due to the autumn sun on this October afternoon or to beer and grappa. In any case, the final whistle doesn’t put a stop to their singing, and the result certainly doesn’t. Centro Storico Lebowski has just lost 0:1 against Sestese. District league on the outskirts of Florence, where you look in vain for tourists.
You take it as it comes, as the Coen brothersr cult film “The Big Lebowski” from 1998 says. Some of the shuffling tifosi do credit to “Dude” Jeff Bridges as well as the other strange characters played by John Goodman, Steve Buscemi or John Turturro. One is almost tempted to throw one of the film quotes into the crowd out of enthusiasm. For example, that this is not Vietnam, but football, and there are rules. At the beginning of the millennium, CS Lebowski had had enough of rules and the mechanisms of sport.
Borja Valero leans outside the dressing room. “This is really fantastic here. The essence of football as it should be lived everywhere. Pure fun and joy.” Now 36, he used to attend Real Madrid’s youth school but only made three professional appearances there, then Mallorca, West Bromwich, Villarreal, Inter Milan and AC Florence, 68 times Valero played in the European Cup and once, in 2011, for Spain. In six years Florence became home for him and family, he lives the city without airs and graces, the Viola fans dubbed him “il Sindaco”, the mayor.
Valero wanted to help Florence – Florence refused
Valero wanted to help out at Fiorentina for another year and take a pay cut in return. The management refused. Valero didn’t quite go that way after all. A summer flirtation via social networks became reality and he signed on with Lebowski. Giving something back to the city, a platitude. You’d buy it from him.
Once Bernabeu and San Siro, now small squares around Florence – there he is grinning himself. “Cool thing, isn’t it? Here, too, eleven against eleven play, and in the shower everyone is the same, whether Madrid or district league.” But he likes “what the boys have built up. Back to the roots.” For children, professionals are made into a myth and much more than they are, Valero thinks. More important professions, meanwhile, lack recognition. “Football has given me a carefree life, but maybe I would have achieved it with another job.” Here he can now “kick and enjoy without stress and help Lebowski and the sporting and social project a little further”.
The project is simple and at the same time revolutionary for Italy: the club belongs to the members, voting rights for everyone and to hell with club bosses. “Against modern football “ often sounds like pithy pub chatter, CS Lebowski transforms oppositional posturing into passionate pro. When football drifts away from the grassroots, the grassroots take it back. When the sport takes itself more seriously than necessary, the revolutionaries counter with self-irony. The fan tribune is called “Curva Moana Pozzi”, named after the country’s most famous porn actress. Signora Pozzi of all people? “It’s funny. Besides, it means freedom and all Italians love Moana,” claims one fan.
2004 the journey began – as “AC” Lebowski
It all started in 2004 with a group of young people in the Centro Storico, the historic old town that big football had scared away with commercialism and fan restrictions. Overnight, they sought an oasis. The next weekend, they stood in the stands of a club that was then called AC Lebowski. “It was the worst team in the lowest county league in Florence and had just lost 2:8 to the second last. At the beginning we chose the club as a joke, arriving with bengalos and drums. The guys felt they were being pranked and asked who we were. We said: We are your Ultras from today – forever!” recalls Nicolo, one of the veterans. Together, they finished the season with zero points and 99 goals conceded. The grey-black of the jerseys, still unusual today, was an added bonus. The choice fell on the cheapest set of colours at the time, which the shop hadn’t been able to get rid of for years.
Real verve came into club life in 2010 when stagnation threatened. “Support in punk mode is good, but a plan for the future brought additional stimulation and spirit to the cause,” says Matthias Moretti, a long-time member and a kind of press spokesman. The office has long been necessary, as Lebowski made headlines when the club climbed all the way to the 6th league by 2018. The idea remained the same: self-determination, coaches are not fired, booing the team is strictly forbidden, match day is called a family party. And the family is growing, the club is a popular representative of “Calcio Popolare”, football from below, at least since its transformation into a cooperative three years ago.
We are about pure calcio and community.
Fans from all over the world hold shares, the latest addition being a supporter from New Zealand. Germany is also prominently represented. It went like this: If an Italian Erasmus student meets a Cologne fan outside the pub … Last year Lebowski and the “Coloniacs” celebrated ten years of fan friendship. The Italians were dressed in red and white jerseys with the slogan “Bliev Jeck! The Cologne fans responded at home with an enormous congratulatory banner in Italian. Both groups visit each other regularly; after the flood tragedy, CS Lebowski organised a fundraising campaign for those affected.
Around 800 people come to the matches, which is more than the average attendance of many third division clubs in Serie C. They celebrate 90 minutes of roaring folklore with beacons, non-stop cheering and banging of drums. Pyrotechnics are prohibited by the association. “But a curve needs colour,” says Giovanni. “We have never allowed ourselves to be reprimanded. When the referee said: ‘I’ll stop the match,’ we replied: Let’s lose at the green table.” Some of the dudes have been banned from the stadium until February after discussions with the police.
Seven kids turned into 160
In spite of everything, solidarity and the avoidance of pigeonholing or politicisation remain important. “Of course many sympathise with the left, but everyone is welcome here. We don’t exist against Fiorentina or to do left-wing politics. We are about pure calcio and community,” says Moretti. Free stadiums, independent football, our city, our club. A few dozen became 980 members. Borja Valero’s arrival pushed the number up to 1400.
The club also runs a football school. There were seven children seven years ago. At the time, Lebowski and the parents of an old town neighbourhood saved a park that was to be turned into a car park for luxury flats. “Today we are 120 boys and 40 girls.” They should learn about emotions in sport, because feelings stay forever. “Minimal order in chaos, without shouting like ‘Damn it, stay in your position!”, explains youth coordinator Giovanni.
Lebowski is a terrific project for calcio and the city. It shows how football can still work today without greed and with the values of the basic idea intact.
A few years ago, Lebowski Junior beat Fiorentina 2:0 in highly emotional fashion. The Viola poached two children in revenge. For parents with a manageable budget, the football school, which is otherwise often expensive in Italy, is free. Everyone helps Lebowski, and Lebowski helps. In September, they marched in jerseys at the demo for 442 workers of an engine factory who were dismissed by mail. Two of them are Lebowskis. The labour court recently annulled the dismissals as unlawful.
“Lebowski is a terrific project for Calcio and the city. It shows how football can still function today without greed and with the values of the basic idea intact. Of course, the thing with Borja Valero gives the whole thing a wonderfully romantic complexion,” says Benedetto Ferrara, a Florentine journalist for La Repubblica, who mediated the flirtation between the Spaniard and Lebowski. Admittedly, the engagement meant walking a tightrope. “We don’t want to become a Mickey Mouse fashion and make a profit out of Borja. Then we would be a grotesque copy of the slaves of business football,” says Moretti.
The next goal: a permanent home
A big sponsor came forward, the club is thinking. After all, Lebowski costs 230,000 euros a year, capitalism can’t be tunneled quite that easily. But they only want to agree to a contract without demands or the sponsor’s right of determination. So far, the members have covered the costs as well as an impressive assortment of fan articles – and the “Sagra del Fritto” country festival organised by the club, which attracts around 4,000 hungry people in the summer.
The next goal is to finally play in a permanent home with the youth, women’s team and men. So far, the divisions have moved across the Florentine rental pitches, as not everyone appreciated the weekly spectacle. They want to make it all the way to Serie D first. That would mean two more promotions to Italy’s highest amateur division.
After that, take it as it comes. Borja Valero still has a few years ahead of him. He has experienced great moments in his career, “but at eleven in secondary school, you lose a whole youth, the thoughtless bolting, the first love, friendships”. The film Lebowski would now order a White Russian. Borja Valero says: “It was just awesome again today!” And goes home.
