a football match, a game that is transformed into a drama, seems to leave little place for pranks, farce, a satirical interpretation of the world, of others, of events, of these omnipresent characteristics of the carnavalesque ritual.  On the pitch and in the terraces, the highpoints of the game are filled with tension or jubilation, suffering or joy on faces which would be very difficult to associate with a carnavalesque laughter. Unlike actors in the carnival march, the players do not joke around, and they take their role utterly seriously.  In the terraces, and more precisely in the bends where young trouble-makers tend to group, it is quite another matter:  the drama and the game, the serious and the comic play out against each other and the supporters here become actors, offering a spectacle to public and players alike. 

Christian Bromberger is ethnologist and honorary professor at the université de Provence, IDEMEC, and the Maison méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’homme at Aix-en-Provence in France.

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