Football and Minorities

What do the above two things have in common?

Two Sundays ago I joined a couple of friends at a football (soccer to the America-phones among you) game of the Bulgarian league. Sofia's 2 biggest teams were playing. It was my first time watching a football game live in Bulgaria. Of course, I expected lots of offensive cheers and cursing against the opposing team (and the referee :-)). What caught me a little bit by surprise (probably just due to the sheer fact that I haven't lived here for 9 years) was the chanting that the fans of the team I support (Levski) started singing against the other team (CSKA): "All of CSKA back to Turkey; CSKA are Turks." From the other side I was later informed, our team were called gypsies.
So, I guess we offend on the basis of minorities. Given Bulgaria's history, I guess that's not surprising, and I know it is so in other parts of the world as well. What is sad is that I am probably one of very few people that actually notices something wrong with this. What will be sadder is if after a while even I stopped caring...

Back in Bulgaria

So, from here I start the series of posts from my home country. After two weeks in Sofia, I am slowly starting to feel less like a visitor and more like a citizen of my hometown. As suspected, my list of observations to post here is growing, and I will try to keep up.