European football is horrific these days. It’s so predictable.
I still get quite a lot of joy watching football from other continents.
I still get quite a lot of joy watching football from other continents.
Falling out of love with football (warning - miserable moaning post)
- Thread starter noodlehair
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
This is on the money. No great surprise that the first few posts in agreement after the bump came from fans of Manchester United, Chelsea and Everton. I'm sure City, Brighton, Spurs and (spit) Arsenal fans are very much in love with the beautiful game right now.
To be clear, I haven't fallen out of love with the game. I just agreed with a very specific point about football overall becoming more robotic, boring and less individual flair or unpredictability.
As someone who enjoys football much less than I used to in general, and follows it a lot less religiously, the repetitiveness of most of the top leagues has definitely contributed to it. This was definitely already happening, say, a decade or so ago (and indeed before that), but it feels like it's accelerated even more at the top level.
Man City will probably almost certainly break the record for retaining the title this year. Bayern have now been walking over the Bundesliga for a decade. It's almost just difficult to really care...even in a league where someone does break the status quo, it almost inevitably goes back to normal immediately. When a super club is in "crisis", like Barcelona were a while back, they'll sometimes still somehow finish 2nd and just go back to winning the title again almost immediately anyway.
Again, it's nothing new, but from a Scottish POV we're in a league where only two teams essentially have even a basic chance at a title. One club winning everything domestically is no longer remarkable but basically seen as a normal marker of success. It almost feels difficult to grasp why fans of some dominant clubs get so aggrieved at missing out on a domestic cup when they'll inevitably win the next one anyway.
Maybe that's also just a natural aspect of getting older...but hard to be bothered when you feel like you've seen pretty much every title race scenario that's particularly plausible played out already as a fan.
Man City will probably almost certainly break the record for retaining the title this year. Bayern have now been walking over the Bundesliga for a decade. It's almost just difficult to really care...even in a league where someone does break the status quo, it almost inevitably goes back to normal immediately. When a super club is in "crisis", like Barcelona were a while back, they'll sometimes still somehow finish 2nd and just go back to winning the title again almost immediately anyway.
Again, it's nothing new, but from a Scottish POV we're in a league where only two teams essentially have even a basic chance at a title. One club winning everything domestically is no longer remarkable but basically seen as a normal marker of success. It almost feels difficult to grasp why fans of some dominant clubs get so aggrieved at missing out on a domestic cup when they'll inevitably win the next one anyway.
Maybe that's also just a natural aspect of getting older...but hard to be bothered when you feel like you've seen pretty much every title race scenario that's particularly plausible played out already as a fan.
It's true, it's hard to enjoy your side when they're shite. You'll still maybe watch them (I know I do) but the happiness of watching them is very rarely there which can go both ways. I've had it where it made me lose love for football overall but as I mentioned, going to live lower league games has reignited the passion a bit and made me want to watch more PL and other football in general.
I think there maybe is some correlation between how your club is doing but there's also truth in the fact that football has become robotic and functional. There's not many, if any players I would pay to watch.
Also, we need to look at football as a whole rather than dismissing concerns that its down to the posters favourite team doing badly. The German and French leagues have become 1 horse races (with the odd exception in Ligue 1) La Liga has lost quality and any league below the top 5 is hugely behind the rest. Not even Italian teams can compete with the likes of Bournemouth for transfers. With football being so lopsided I worry where European football in particular will end up in a few years. The UCL is probably the most overrated tournament currently with about 2 teams capable of winning it and everyone else just happy to be apart of it.
Also, we need to look at football as a whole rather than dismissing concerns that its down to the posters favourite team doing badly. The German and French leagues have become 1 horse races (with the odd exception in Ligue 1) La Liga has lost quality and any league below the top 5 is hugely behind the rest. Not even Italian teams can compete with the likes of Bournemouth for transfers. With football being so lopsided I worry where European football in particular will end up in a few years. The UCL is probably the most overrated tournament currently with about 2 teams capable of winning it and everyone else just happy to be apart of it.
I do think United being rubbish has a little bit to do with it, but I don't think everything to do with it. It's only the last few years I've started to lose interest and only this season I've found my interest wasn't there at all, and we've been rubbish for a lot longer than that...and actually this season I was quite optimistic we'd do well, and still wasn't remotely interested in anything before our game, which was the last of the weekend.
The "forced to watch non league" argument is a silly one. I used to go every other week to watch Grays Athletic when they were in the Conference and before that Rymand Premier League, when I lived locally to the ground. I go watch Derby on the odd occasion because I can walk to the stadium. I don't put this in the same category as watching top level football on television. I obviously wouldn't be watching 5 Non league games between teams I don't support this weekend even if they were on TV, and neither would anyone else.
I don't think so. I've watched my local non-league side whenever United aren't playing for coming up towards 30 years and find it gives me a great sense of perspective and realism when United fans around me at OT or wherever we are are shouting that the players are dreadful or when I look at this forum and see people saying that "X wouldn't get in a Championship team" or that they are falling out of love with the game because United aren't winning every week anymore, etc.
It isn't though. I didn't bother with about two thirds of the world cup games. In the past I'd watch every single one. Even Iran vs Cameroon. What has that got to do with how good or bad United are?
In fact what has watching any PL game that doesn't involve United got to do with how bad or not United are? We've been irrelevant to potential title deciding games for 10 years and irrelevant to relegation deciding games since before I was born. When LVG was our manager our games were about the only ones I didn't look forward to watching. I don't think it would take me 9 years to realise we were rubbish now and that my enjoyment of football was based upon this.
If there's any point to success or lack of making football less interesting, it would more likely be City walking it every year and making competition irrelevant, than anything specifically to do with United who have hovered consistently around upper table mediocrity for an entire decade.
So I think its a really lazy and baseless assumption, actually.
Funny you should mention the World Cup. I started off heavily biased against it (because Qatar) but ended up about as entertained as it’s possible to be by a football tournament. Would struggle to think of any other cup final I’ve ever enjoyed more as a neutral. In any competition. All of which goes against your notion that football as a spectacle has died a death.
I definitely find club football harder to enjoy but that’s mainly because of how much I despise the best teams around right now. Which is mainly a long term hatred that goes beyond any current jealousy. A football world where Liverpool, City and Arsenal are the best teams around is not really a world I want to partake in (obviously doesn’t help that Saudi owned Newcastle are coming up the rails). If we’re honest with ourselves I’d say this is a much more relevant reason for football being such a miserable experience these last few years than any lack of flair or skill on the pitch.
Conversely, I don’t hate Brighton and I enjoy watching them play (against anyone other than us anyway)
One thing that has really hurt my personal enjoyment is how much VAR has ruined the initial goal excitement
Very true. That’s the one thing that’s soured my actual football watching enjoyment more than any other. The mental gymnastics of immediately deciding every goal we’ve scored won’t stand - to minimise the pain of possibly having it retrospectively chalked off - is a new and 100% shitty part of watching football that never used to be an issue.
It sounds more like it just makes you really obnoxious to people who make those points. I also go to non league games and lower league games, and I started this thread. So you cant really use that stick. I'm not even really sure what people whining about "x player wouldn't get in a championship team" has to do with anything, and especially not what people moaning at OT has to do with anything...they are literally watching and attending the game then getting annoyed by it, so are obviously quite interested in it.
I would never pay a monthly subscription fee to watch Gateshead vs Solihull Moors on Sky...and again, if you replaced PL TV coverage with non league games, almost no one would watch them. This thread is about top level football coverage outside of who you may support, not whether you enjoy going to lower league games and whether that makes you better qualified than other fans or not (it doesn't).
I go watch Farsley Celtic every now and then and initially surprised myself at how much I really enjoyed it. You can take your pints into the stand and laugh at the fans being separated by a single sheepish-looking steward.
If you're not finding the enjoyment in the multi-billion industry that has seemingly alienated a lot of fans, there is still plenty on offer to get you hooked again!
If you're not finding the enjoyment in the multi-billion industry that has seemingly alienated a lot of fans, there is still plenty on offer to get you hooked again!
Watching united used to be a stress buster for me. over the years its added stress so it seems like taking a break from analysis and reviews and scrutiny is good for my blood pressure.
Serie A is where it's at
The world cup passed me by and I was baffled by how many people seemed to think it was the best ever. I enjoyed the final immensely but I couldn't point to any other game or moment outside of that. The thing that provoked the most interest from me aside from that was Southgate subbing on fecking Sterling for Saka.
...but then this is partly what I'm trying to gauge....whether it is just me who feels like this or a general trend. As opposed to proclaiming football has died a death, which isn't what I have said.
I would have thought despising teams would give greater incentive to watch games tbh. I used to watch every Arsenal game during the Wenger days because I thought they were a bunch of twats so would route for the opposition. Same with Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Leeds, whoever Robbie Keane was playing for...the problem is I don't feel that way about any team now.
United not being relevant to the top of the table is definitely a factor, but I think as much if not more so is that no one is really relevant because City have made it so no one can compete with them, at the same time as diminishing their own achievements by financially cheating in order to do so, which kind of renders the whole thing a bit pointless. Like a 400m sprint but where one person starts at the 200m mark and then we're all supposed to try to beat them and for some reason pretend this wasn't a factor when they manage to easily win. I don't dislike or like City. They are just there. I can't think of a single player I actively despise for on pitch reasons, at any club. But there's no getting away from it being less interesting when you already know who is going to win.
I think that's also part of a bigger factor that ruins my enjoyment which is the lack of integrity of the whole thing. Referees deciding games to help out their mates and using VAR as an incompetence enabler, pretending your players have covid to cancel games you don't want to play yet, or I've realised mostly the near constant diving and injury feigning in every single game (and this really is a big one because watching people pretend to be hurt over and over for 2 hours is really fecking dumb and boring). These things have been part of football for a long time but have also gotten progressively more prominent over time.
I don't think its down to one thing basically. Football just used to be more fun imo, and I used to have more time to spare to not be picky about what I spend it on.
I didn't realize how numb I'd become to the absurdly cynical nature of the modern game until I started watching rugby ~2016. Watching teams get actually punished for persistent cynical tactical fouling was a major turning point for me and I've never been able to enjoy football the same way since. That feeling has only intensified with the absurd implementation of VAR. All of the gains from sport science over the past 20 years have created a better athlete, but destroyed all the beauty of the game and left only ugliness behind.
I abandoned my innate pessimism and celebrated Garnacho's goal against Arsenal like a madman. Can confirm that it felt like I'd been gut-punched by Mike Tyson when it was disallowed. Back to cautious optimism at best for me on the rare occasions we put the ball in the opposition's net!
Yup. Can't imagine how the players must have felt.
We used to watch human beings, now we essentially watch robots on the pitch. It’s nowhere near as fun because everything is so coach-controlled.
I watch a lot of classic football. Aside from VAR, the main issue for me is the play acting. I feel like stoppages for this takes out about 20 minutes of the game today. It is very noticeable when you see the players of yesteryear just get on with things.
The two worst parts of this are when a player loses the ball, acts hurt, realises his team still has possession and carries on as normal, or when a player dives or is actually taken out, the opposition are all saying it's a dive and act disgusted at someone daring to play act. Like, BITCH, YOU ALL DO IT.
The two worst parts of this are when a player loses the ball, acts hurt, realises his team still has possession and carries on as normal, or when a player dives or is actually taken out, the opposition are all saying it's a dive and act disgusted at someone daring to play act. Like, BITCH, YOU ALL DO IT.
On the World Cup, I really enjoyed it but it definitely felt like, online at least, there was a proper sense of surprise at how good the tournament ended up being relative to expectations. But to be honest I've found myself enjoying the last few international tournaments far more than week-to-week club football. Even if the winners remain somewhat predictable there's at least a novelty which comes with the events only happening every couple of years.
I don't want to go on a "it was better in the good old days" rant, but I certainly enjoyed football more when it wasn't plastered all over the news 24/7 with endless stats, pundits, and the constant dissection of every move. For me, it's no longer a spectator sport but a television event. Speaking of Everton, I went to my first cup semi in 1966 when we played you. It was a terrific game even though we lost. I think I still have a yellowed copy of the match report from the Sunday People which was about all the analysis football fans got back then.
I definitely feel this. I really enjoyed watching Okocha. Players like that just don't exist. At least in the PL they don't. Football is way more robotic and tactical now than it was back in the 90's and early 00's.
Still, I'm sure many of us feel this way because of how shite United are. If the team were performing, I don't think we would feel this way. I'm sure the fans of the teams that are performing well still love football a lot.
Antony gets shit on for trying things like this.
I don't know if you remember Nani's little exhibition against Arsenal, but that was slammed by the pundits as him being 'disrespectful.' The fans loved it and it's that type of showmanship we enjoy. There are very few mavericks any more.
Don't see the similarities with Antony. Like @Moriarty said above, I think Nani is a much better example. That lad had skill. Could beat a man easily and would showboat at times. I will never forget that Arsenal game. Loved watching him play. I don't think Antony has ability like Nani did.
Football is still largely fantastic - everything gets worse as you age, but fully agree with those bemoaning VAR. A truly tragic moment in the sport.
Going to OT still always reminds me why the game is so important, but then VAR kicks you in the bollocks and it costs you £45.
Going to OT still always reminds me why the game is so important, but then VAR kicks you in the bollocks and it costs you £45.
I can't say I've fallen out of love with Football,
But I certainly can't stand the people that watch football, and it's making me dislike the top level more and more.
Or to quantify that fully, I can't stand the extreme polarisation that occurs, we've seen it in politics and other walks of life, there's no middle ground anymore.
It's either player X is world class after a good three months, then when they have a bad patch they turn into a 'Championship' level player.
Or player Y can't even play football despite being a full international and a professional player at the top level.
Unfortunately this noise is hard to block out due to journalists, pundits and media in general picking up on this noise and making it louder.
But I certainly can't stand the people that watch football, and it's making me dislike the top level more and more.
Or to quantify that fully, I can't stand the extreme polarisation that occurs, we've seen it in politics and other walks of life, there's no middle ground anymore.
It's either player X is world class after a good three months, then when they have a bad patch they turn into a 'Championship' level player.
Or player Y can't even play football despite being a full international and a professional player at the top level.
Unfortunately this noise is hard to block out due to journalists, pundits and media in general picking up on this noise and making it louder.
You are correct. If Liverpool were consistently bad for years as united are now it would be tough to be as interested compared to when they’re winning. But it’s not just that, it’s the VAR, refs, and the cookie cutter players who are becoming indistinguishable between each other. All players now are fantastic with the fundamentals of receiving and ball movement which in turn has phased out the individuals who were unique in how they played. There are no more personalities in the sport anymore except for the managers I suppose.
I'll be honest pal, I've realised this wasn't the thread I thought I was replying in. I thought I was responding to the thread in the United forum about apathy setting in basically because we were rubbish for five games. My mistake.
I used to think i also have fallen out of love with football. And then i brought my nephew to the park and end up watching a bunch of teenagers playing football and kinda forgot all my issues for about 45 mins straight. Turns out im just out of sync with manutd and their shenanigans.
I've seen this argument a few times now. It does seem true that the players of my youth like Ronaldinho, Henry, Rooney, etc. were more unique than the stars of today.
I wonder if that's just me aging though. Players like Haaland, Musiala, Garnacho, and Bellingham are worshipped by kids around the world because they are so good that they can be unique while still fitting into modern football systems.
I bet this next generation of stars will be similarly adored to the likes of Kaka because they're just as unique.
They could as a minimum stop sending goal alerts until the game has kicked off again.
VAR ruling a goal out even stung me off an alert for United v Brighton when I was nowhere near the game!
I really hate the handballs. Something has to be done about it, it is the most disproportionate punishment in all sports, in a game where scoring 1 goal is extremely difficult.
Maybe you're just getting older. You've seen enough of the football so anything is hardly surprising/novel to you anymore. Plus, with age, other stuff is simply more relevant as well as important. Watching several games of football per week is time-consuming. More and more one starts to wonder why am I doing this. It becomes pointless, while when you were younger, it was the essence of fun.
In a word, age. In other words, life.
I'm just assuming, of course, but it happened to me as well several years ago. Now I'm only watching United, maybe even out of habit. Not even my boyhood club (Red Star) and they're playing CL, simply because they're too boring.
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I started losing passion for watching the game a long time ago, like 15 years or so. Playing is another thing, although age/kids is becoming a factor there. I still think from time to time about the reasons, but it's always boils down to:
- Too predictable. You can almost always guess at the start of the season who's going to win it. Yeah, there are flukes like Leicester winning it, or Arsenal having a good run. Lille or Monaco mustering up a title. But when you draw the line is always England - a couple of teams, France - PSG, Germany - why bother, Spain Real/Barcelona, Italy is somewhat competitive enough, I'd give'em that.
- Less magical moments. The last person that really made me stand up while watching a game for us was Berbatov. I love having be surprised from time to time. Nowadays everything, players, system, etc. is so efficient is borderline boring. There's no "flair" if you will. Hence the only two competitions that actually get me excited are the EURO and the WC.
I’ve been somewhat burnt out from football since about 2011ish. Part of growing up and other social life stuff. I used to play FM, FIFA and Pro Evo a lot up until then, but after that I completely checked out. I still enjoy video games though but not football ones.
Footballs been slowly getting more corporate and it’s a sport rife with cheating and corruption which puts you off it. It’s getting expensive to fecking watch it. I miss the days of European Football being on free TV. I could handle Sky Sports having the Champions League because to be fair to them back then they put on a very good service, and gave you multi choice for all matches… but when BT entered the mix it all changed for the worse and now you’ve got to pay two huge premiums, most people chose one or the other.
Footballs been slowly getting more corporate and it’s a sport rife with cheating and corruption which puts you off it. It’s getting expensive to fecking watch it. I miss the days of European Football being on free TV. I could handle Sky Sports having the Champions League because to be fair to them back then they put on a very good service, and gave you multi choice for all matches… but when BT entered the mix it all changed for the worse and now you’ve got to pay two huge premiums, most people chose one or the other.
It is happening to me too.
As others have said European football has become methodical and predictable. There is little space for sparks, freedom and surprise. To me it feels more unwatchable than some years ago.
Social media saturation is a thing, and it doesn't help. Also VAR is a positive change, but it sometimes kills the joy.
I usually watched La Liga and the CL. Decades of Spanish football have been tarnished by a refereeing scandal that looks like it will be swiped under the carpet and the CL is dominated by Sheiks and oil money.
There is little of the football I grew up watching.
As others have said European football has become methodical and predictable. There is little space for sparks, freedom and surprise. To me it feels more unwatchable than some years ago.
Social media saturation is a thing, and it doesn't help. Also VAR is a positive change, but it sometimes kills the joy.
I usually watched La Liga and the CL. Decades of Spanish football have been tarnished by a refereeing scandal that looks like it will be swiped under the carpet and the CL is dominated by Sheiks and oil money.
There is little of the football I grew up watching.