I used to be a football fan, and then Shane recommended this book to me.
For most of its length, it’s well-argued and informative, although its UK title gives the wrong impression about its contents, which range over a number of issues, many having nothing whatever to do with the English national team. Its US title – Soccernomics – gives you a better idea of both its contents and its inspiration.
I’m not going to write about the book in much detail, except to note that it was the very last straw in my disaffection with a game that has simply become a business, a business in which people who go to the ground and watch their team play have become the least important stakeholders, when the game is ostensibly played for their enjoyment. The fact that I’d allowed myself the delusion that it was anything else says a great deal about the emotional hold the game used to have on me. Like leaving a cult, it takes effort to de-programme your brain, and this book is a useful aid in that process.
Like Shane, I think the authors are wrong about penalty taking, or are at least barking up the wrong game theory; all the research in the world can’t help a goalkeeper save a penalty that is kicked hard and accurately into either of the top corners of the goal.
I also think that their argument that England over-achieve based on population size, economic output and football heritage is inconsistent with their astute analysis of the many, many failings of the game in England, failings which suggest that this is still a game ruled by superstition, old boy networks and other prejudices. For example, it is absolutely unthinkable that a league club would ever appoint a woman as a manager, and while racist player recruitment has been all but eradicated, black candidates for managers’ jobs find it much tougher than white ones, and on the rare occasions that they land a job, they are sacked more quickly than their white colleagues if (or, rather, when) results don’t go their way.
The dose of reality Kuper and Symanski give here regarding England’s chances in major tournaments would be useful medicine for England fans to swallow. The fact is that England don’t win football tournaments because they don’t have a very good pool of players to choose from, and they fail to do the things necessary to mask or counter this fundamental weakness. This seems to be simple but difficult truth that is very difficult for anyone in the media to accept. I suspect that a good number of England fans do understand this basic problem, though; the media stopped representing fans’s views many years ago, if indeed they ever did. Their business is the that of deluded optimism in advance of a tournament, and vengeful fury after it, which must be what they calculate will sell the most papers and Sky subscriptions.
The authors are very fond of Arsène Wenger, which is very difficult to stomach, even for someone who they’ve cured of the football disease. I’ve always thought that he’s a double-dealing, mendacious, tricksy scumbag with selective vision and memory, and a massive chip on his shoulder about his own inability to play the game very well. Nothing here changes that perception. His professed love of the beautiful game is only credible if you believe Patrick Viera played it, which is only possible if you know nothing at all about football. The only difference between him and the equally detestable Ferguson is the former’s intellectual affectations. Oh, and the silverware; Ferguson has got a lot more of that than his chippy North London based rival.
Football as I understood and loved it as a child is gone forever. What is left for fans is to become a mobile billboard and “support” a sovereign wealth fund, or turn up to see a team that has absolutely no chance at all of ever winning any trophies. Any idea that the World Cup might be different can easily be shown to be illusory both on the pitch by the dreadful standard of football at the last umpteen tournaments, and FIFA’s saccharine-smile avarice off it.
I’ve got better things to do with my time than to waste it on this corrupt, stupid, lazy, greedy, sexist, homophobic, racist game.
No related posts.