It is a measure of a true supporter. You are cheering your favorite club no matter how good they are doing. And when you finally lift that silverware after waiting for 30 years, it gets so much sweater.
I can sort of relate in my local Croatian league. I am supporting my home club Rijeka, but Dinamo is the one lifting trophy every year. Then it was so much better when we finally took first spot in 2017. after Dinamo won 11 times in the row. That is only year Dinamo has not been the champion in the last 20 years. That being said I am not "die hard" type of supporter and I have no problem cheering Dinamo to do well in Europe but my heart is reserved for Rijeka in our local league.
Couldn't agree more. It does feel so so much sweeter after years of bitterness;)
I will always remember you and Rijeka, and I definitely can find the similarity with me and my local state league, which sadly, will probably never achieve anything in my lifetime. They never won the national league, they came second several times, but we have once won the national cup in my lifetime, the coach swore he would jump off a bridge into a river (we have crocodiles in our river haha) and when he did like the whole city jumped in too that was a grand memory.
I also attended a last final in 1999 (the last match in a stadium before they destroyed it) and that was also the last years we played with 2 other small countries who had Brazilian and European imports and we were 100% local team, short and tiny and smaller than the others -- we lost 1-2 but that was still one of my biggest memories.
Today we are now twice defunct, rebuilt each time because of lack of funds and corruption (and a stupid weed scandal that jailed the entire team I supported haha). Bottom of the last league so we can't even get relegated anymore.
But like you, I support the national team and the "super" team in AFC, even though never on a local rivalry.
