I had a very simple but great juventino moment this morning.
No question, this is the kind of season that shakes out all the fair-weather fans and makes it painful to watch for the rest of us who stick through it.
Now where I live, the calcio fans are few and far-between. There are posers in ManU or Arsenal or the occasional Chelsea gear. Even Pool from time to time. And you do see an occasional Inter jersey or Milan jacket.
But Juve is pretty rare. So when you do run into one, it's almost an event -- like being the only two black kids in a suburban high school of 500 white people and finally coming across each other in the hallway one day.
I haven't been wearing my Juve gear much lately, as I normally do. It's not about the embarrassment of this year's squad, which doesn't help. A friend of mine who runs the neighborhood Sardinian restaurant is a huge juventino, but he winces everytime I come in the door with my Juve jacket on -- reminding him of woe. But the main reason I'm not wearing my colors much lately is that I'm wearing rain gear all the time -- because of the weather. (This is SF's season for it, because between the months of May and October San Francisco averages only 2cm of rainfall.)
So on the way to work this morning, out of the subway, here comes walking the other "black kid in high school" -- a random guy wearing his Juve colors. Seeing that, in a season such as this one, was oddly reassuring and uplifting. It was a reminder of fan support in tough times. Which was probably the reason I joined these forums 7 years ago to begin with.
I guess I don't have too much to add here, other than a sort of silver lining to this season for me is the persistent fans despite these hard times.
In other words to my fellow juventini: "I love you, man!"