BEIRUT: A small nargileh place in Hamra with three TVs and a projector is playing football on a Saturday night. There are a group of 20 fans seated in the back corner of the café, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and their eyes glued to the TV.

Barcelona versus Villarreal is on tonight.

Barcelona are the reigning champions of Spain and Europe and are widely considered to be the best club team in the world. They boast such stars as Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and the biggest star of them all, three-time Ballon D’or winner Lionel Messi.

However, a closer look at the group of fans shows that their focus isn’t on Messi and co. but instead on the projector screen showing Italian giants Juventus play Udinese. The crowd at 3a Zaw2ak in Hamra are a vocal bunch who are staunch “Juventini.” Each fan is sporting a jersey or scarf as they all join in chants in support of their club.

While many of the Lebanese support high-profile and consistently successful teams there are pockets of ultra-passionate fans peppered around the Beirut area that support less fashionable sides.

Bassel Barakat, Uday Mezhr and Hussein Issa are the founding members of Lebanon’s Juventus fan club. They began supporting the team in the late 90s and 2000s, when Juventus and Italian football were experiencing a golden age.

“Lebanon has a huge fan base for Italy,” Barakat told The Daily Star.

“Yes, and most Italians come from Juventus while other teams rely on foreign talents,” added Mezhr.

Juventus were once the premier team in Italy until a 2006 scandal, called “Calciopoli,” saw them relegated to Serie B. Despite being promoted back up to Serie A the following season, the Turin-based side is back in contention for the Serie A title for the first time since being relegated.

Another club with a storied history but less recent success is England’s Liverpool.

Samer Zouehid is a half-Lebanese, half-British Liverpool fan that runs Lebanon’s Liverpool fan club.

Zouehid says that although Liverpool aren’t reaching the highs they have in years past (currently they sit in fifth in the English Premier League) fans are attracted by the clubs history and culture.

“If you remember the Champions League final in Istanbul [in 2005] we were down 3-0 at halftime,” Zouehid said, “but instead of doing what Real Madrid does with waving white flags, we sang ‘You’ll never walk alone.’ Moments like this is what brings Lebanese fans to support Liverpool and had a legend like Johann Cruyff even ask, ‘Why is Liverpool the most special club in the world?’”

Administrator of Lebanon’s Arsenal fan club, Kais Al Kaissi, cites a couple of influences in his decision to support Arsenal.

“The name, the cannon, [Dennis] Bergkamp and [Marc] Overmars,” Kaissi said.

“[During the 1998 World Cup] I couldn’t help but fall in love with Bergkamp and Overmars [of the Netherlands],” Kaissi said.

“Soon after the World Cup I turned...to club football and my parents took me to get my first club kit. [I found] a team that had a cannon for their logo! How cool was that!” he said.

While finding a venue to watch Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United isn’t very difficult in Lebanon, fan clubs of smaller teams encounter problems.

“We were tired of watching [the matches] on small screens,” Zouehid said. Now his group meets at Angry Monkey in Gemmayzeh to watch the match on a large projector screen.

Lebanon’s Juventus fan club had similar luck, “especially when Barcelona and Real Madrid play it’s hard to find a place, so we had to search a lot,” Barakat said. “We know Ali Hamoud [the nephew of the owner of 3a Zaw2ak in Hamra] so now we usually meet here [to watch matches].”

While Lebanon’s Juventus and Liverpool fan clubs have found a meeting place, there are other clubs who have yet to find a consistent place to watch matches. Kaissi says that there are many factors as to why Lebanon’s Arsenal fan club doesn’t have a regular place to watch matches.

The fan club has seen a few matches at Deek Duke and more recently Hard Rock Café. However, according to Kaissi, it has been hard to settle on an official place due to “multiple faiths, religions, ideologies and age groups.”

Lebanon’s fan clubs are currently making ambitious plans to increase exposure of their groups. Zouehid said he was in the process of organizing a “5 a side” football team while Barakat, Issa and Mezhr are planning a tournament for their group.

The biggest plan for each fan club though is to become Lebanon’s official fan club.

Zouehid said he has emailed Liverpool and is now just waiting to hear back while Barakat said they are just trying to find a committed group of 50 to pay the yearly fee of 15 Euros for each fan. Kaissi said they had finished the requirements to become official but then Arsenal told them that they are restructuring the official fan club rules and would be notified once the rules were settled.

After obtaining official status, the fan clubs’ final goals are to plan trips to Europe to watch their respective teams play. From the Angry Monkey to Anfield, from nargileh to the Stadio delle Alpi, from cramped pubs and cafes to the open air of their favorite clubs’ stadiums; such a voyage would be a fitting end to their journey.