If you live in Boston, rooting for Maccabi Haifa in Israeli soccer should be as axiomatic as rooting for the Patriots. Recently, in the middle of a discussion of soccer in general, and Israeli soccer specifically as the season kicks off in Israel on August 21, my co-worker started belting out a Maccabi Tel Aviv chant. Blasphemy!
Recognizing this as a chance to assault not only a misplaced rooting interest in Maccabi Tel Aviv, but also to draw attention to one of those South-Florida-fan-of-New-York-teams situations because he's from Boca but loves New York sports, I took aim at his peusdo-fandom of the reigning Israeli champions and treble holders as another example of questionable and misplaced sports loyalties.
Me: That’s typical wannabe New Yorker behavior, rooting for Maccabi Tel Aviv. A real hard decision there, kid.
Him: (Pauses)
Him: (Looks over his shoulder at the Jets flag behind his desk)
Him: Yeah, you’re right, Dan. Typical front-runner behavior.
Me: (Thinks)
Me: You’ve got a point there.
He wins. For now. There really isn't anything worse than being a Jets fan, so I concede the point. But he should still be rooting for Maccabi Haifa.
This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE
