More Joy

It's a great time of year if you're into watching throngs of people celebrate their local sporting club advancing to a higher level of competition. Technically, also true if you like watching fans suffer as their club's are relegated, but nobody's that much of a dick. [To be fair, if the Yankees were relegated, I'd do the Ren & Stimpy dance.]

Today's entry comes from Northern Germany, where Hamburg-based FC St. Pauli clinched promotion to the Bundesliga after 13 years in the second division. The team is famously governed by explicitly leftwing principles - some if its fans remain angry that the club sells merchandise and participates in capitalist enterprises, an interesting if possibly self-defeating point of view. The club is also fiercely local and focused on its civic responsibilities, and boasts a 31 year-old American manager. Pauli is one we can get behind, as they'll be one of the most dogged of underdogs next season.

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Your Moment of Joy

Como are an Italian soccer club with a long history, but not much of a winning pedigree. I Lariani have spent 14 of their 117 professional seasons in Serie A, usually toiling in the second or third divisions of Italian soccer. As the club's website itself hints in claiming Il Gioco Più Bello Del Mondo Nella Location Più Bella Del Mondo ("The Beautiful Game in the Most Beautiful Location"), it's probably not that difficult to accept mediocrity when you're living in Lake Como.

As recently as 2019, Como were playing in Serie D, the lowest rung of Italian professional soccer. Over the past few years, the club made a steady climb towards the top. And yesterday, after a 1-1 draw with Cosenza and Venezia's 2-1 loss to Spezia, Como clinched its first promotion to Serie A since 2003.

Striker Alessandro Gabrielloni joined Como in 2018, after a bankruptcy and recapitalization landed the club in Serie D. He's scored 63 goals in 202 matches in his seven years in blue. And at a time when professional athletes get accused of not caring, he showed how wrong that can be in the agonizing seconds before the final whistle yesterday.

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Semm Cumasch!

Words for the Week

From Roger Ebert's memoir:

"I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

Gheorghe approves of this message.