Amsterdam - Sweat-filled shirts and scribbled signatures are holy relics to football fans. The cult is the focus of a new museum exhibition in Amsterdam, Football Hallelujah, with altars, prayers and a golden boot on show.
Football is much more than just a ball game for 22 players, as any true fan will tell you.
Some even have “Football is my religion” tattooed on their bodies. Others want to be buried in coffins in their club's colours.
The cult is on show in a museum in Amsterdam, which is the first European city to show the exhibition Football Hallelujah and probably the most convenient location for the tourist to see the show before it goes on international tour.
Football has taken over the role of religion for many. That's the conclusion of Amsterdam Museum director Paul Spies, who adds:
“The stadiums are getting fuller and the churches emptier.”
And the fans' rituals are becoming elaborate and slowly becoming similar to those of Christian churches.
Visitors to the football exhibition are welcomed by the international football hymn, “You'll never walk alone,” and walk through a showcase of sacred heroes, immortal gods, faith and superstition.
Together with the Basle History Museum in Switzerland, the Dutch museum collected trophies, fan memorabilia, videos and photos as well as many stories to create the exhibition, which runs until January 4, 2015.
The weirdest displays of this species of popular culture can be found in the Netherlands, one of the most secular countries in Europe.
As soon as an international trophy is up for grabs, the country breaks out in a flood of orange - the football national team's colour. Everything gets coloured orange, from beer to cake.
Football fever is of course up and kicking in the rest of Europe as well - and not only during European and world championships. Every weekend, hordes of fans go on pilgrimages to stadiums across the continent.
Spies says: “They are processions to the new temples.”
The players on the pitch are worshipped like saints.
While canonisation can take hundreds of years in the Catholic Church and at least one miracle must be performed, things go a lot quicker in Europe's number-one public entertainment.
An amazing goal or a stopped penalty is all it takes and the player is honoured forever, with his sweaty old shirts and scribbled autographs treasured by the fans like relics with healing powers.
The Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff, who guided Ajax Amsterdam and Barcelona to world fame, received the nickname “The Saviour.”
Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi is also known as the “Messiah.”
Argentina's Diego Maradona may well have entered the pantheon already as a living god. Arguably, he thinks so himself: Maradona
said a controversial goal where his hand touched the ball at the 1986 World Cup was scored with “the hand of god.”
In Naples, one bar owner erected an altar to Maradona as a thank you for his greatness with Italian club SSC Napoli in the 1980s.
“He put original hair from Maradona into the walls,” said Amsterdam exhibition curator Annemarie de Wildt. Unfortunately, there is only a replica of the shrine in Amsterdam - without the hair.
Another relic shining in a display case is the golden shoe of former Dutch star Marco van Basten.
There is also some original grass from Berlin's Olympic Stadium from the 2006 World Cup final, as well as a pebble from the old Ajax Stadium.
“With God at Schalke” is a chant pleading to a higher power sung by fans in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
The museum has also been lent a voodoo altar from the Togo national team. De Wildt points out the small padlocks on the legs of the dolls.
“The magic is designed to paralyse the opponents,” he explains.
The Amsterdam Museum reserved a part of the show for the city's own record champions Ajax, so that when Football Hallelujah tours Europe over the next four years, the Dutch heroes will be front and centre as an answer to fans' prayers. - Sapa-dpa