Stuff in football that really annoys you?

Lj82

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Why?

Many years ago I was Malaysia and got up in the middle of the night to watch United in the hotel bar. I met a lad who was about my age and shared so many of my United memories. He was from Singapore so was usually either staying up well past midnight or getting up at 4am to watch United, or very occasionally flying halfway across the world. Who am I to tell him he's not a real United supporter?
The Premier League has a religious following in Southeast Asia. Guess it might have some roots from our colonial past. It's difficult to explain why we care so much for teams that are located so far away, or why the local rivalries do matter to us. But that's just how it is.
 

Bobcat

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  • Time wasting + diving + refs who buy it. Like a home game against a shite team, they score a flukey goal, then spends the rest of the half going to ground on every single contact and then have a brain damaged ref give them free kicks, which means out of 45, only 20 minutes are actually played
  • Producers who show close up shots of players/managers on the bench for way to long
  • Shite pundits, mostly ex players with zero insight
 

The Don

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What really annoys me about football, is me. I have an (ir)rational? hatred for every team we play and every player in that team, for the duration of that match and for long perids after if they have a good game against us. It's ridiculous, I know but it is what it is. I do wish I could be more sporting about it but I can't. It's annoying.
 

VictoriaRed

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When one of our attacking players fouls a midfielder/defender deep in the attacking end of the pitch, while the opposition player is going backwards; slays me! Basically, all they have to do is shepherd them backwards and make it plenty difficult!
 

Needham

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Tats and wages, though that's also an issue in care homes.
 

RochaRoja

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Not directly linked to football but social media surrounding football and banter accounts etc are totally the worst thing about the game now

And the 3pm football TV rights in the UK
One of the main reasons I hope Mourinho never gets a job in football again is the obsession with “pressers” when he’s in a job. The fact that tabloid journalists convinced people that dross is worth following.

All of the Sunday Supplement lot can do one too.
 

heinze58

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Having to pay Sky and BT two arms and a leg to watch the odd game of who ever you happen to support. I gave up in the end and just erm.. watch on the radio. Also: prawn sandwiches. Keane gave everyone a stick to beat us with that will never go away. Our fans are bloody terrific most of the time.
 

1950

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Wingers pretending to take a throw-in for 90 seconds, only to hand it to the fullback in the end.

Freekick wall-setting taking ages, contesting for every inch, only for the taker to send it into orbit or straight into the wall. Much better since the introduction of foam.

Corners into the first man. Already mentioned but needs repeating.

"There was contact" penalty claims. Contact ≠ foul.

Players pretending they didn't hear the whistle or that they don't know what the ref is talking about after the most obvious fouls.
 

broccoli

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Match commentators who never shut the feck up. Very common in Portugal
 

Giggsy PO

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Players who try to gain advantage by moving ball 10-15 cm before taking corners or free kicks. Put the ball in the middle of the arc FFS! The ball will travel at least 50m.
 

HTG

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Gambling and the never ending stream of ads for gambling.
 

Vadim

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Players who try to gain advantage by moving ball 10-15 cm before taking corners or free kicks. Put the ball in the middle of the arc FFS! The ball will travel at least 50m.
Came here to post exactly this!

What is with that at corners? To gain a few centimetres advantage?

It’s stupid and every footballer does it now.
 

U99ted

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English fans giving stupid nicknames to foreign players. For example...

Cristiano Ronaldo - “Ronny”
Roberto Firmino - “Bobby”
Laurent Blanc - “Larry White”
De Gea - “Dave”

You get where I’m going with this. I don’t know why it bothers me... it’s just all a bit cringe if I’m being honest.
The worst one is Chelsea fans calling Azpilicueta "Dave".
 

Bill Hartzia

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Bogus 'injuries'. Timewasting. Diving. Arsene Wenger. Arsenal. Liverpool. Injury time - why can all grounds not have a stadium clock which is stopped whe the ball is not in play and restarted once it is?
 

Stadjer

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Bad referees. The referee during the Madrid - Ajax game let the game go on a lot. Even when a player went to the floor and shouted or started waving around his arms he kept the play going.

The dives, the pretending to be injured.. it would be so much less if more referees would be like Brych (that Madrid - Ajax) was last night. It is just so annoying and also pretty weird to see top athletes fall and roll around.

There is a reason players do it... it helps and referees will give them a foul but also when a player wont do it, it is actually a disadvantage. For example if Neymar got hit like Lukaku was during the Southampton game he would have been rolling around for 5 minutes and Southampton would be with 10. Lukaku just kept walking and the Southampton player only got yellow...

Better referees or referees with a bit more backbone would make football more fun to watch again.
 

King7Eric

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Why?

Many years ago I was Malaysia and got up in the middle of the night to watch United in the hotel bar. I met a lad who was about my age and shared so many of my United memories. He was from Singapore so was usually either staying up well past midnight or getting up at 4am to watch United, or very occasionally flying halfway across the world. Who am I to tell him he's not a real United supporter?
I'd also say that this was just as the Arsenal years were ending. He'd been watching United (and Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson and Bellion) religiously throughout those, but he also had pretty encyclopaedic knowledge of everything from when I started watching United (my first game was in 1993). I don't know if Singapore TV even had United then. He might have gone back and researched. Anyway, he clearly loved United.
Its actually something I've noticed since moving to Europe. Being an Indian, not everyone in India used to watch football, but pretty much everyone who did had a real knowledge, not just about the team they follow, but also football in general. But here people are usually only really familiar with the teams they support and some of the other big clubs. For instance, back home I could have discussions with people about Bundesliga, Seria A and their teams and players, despite the majority of Indians being fans of the PL teams. People would know their stuff. But here, my boss for instance (a Barca fan:mad:) didn't know any of the players who played for Lyon or even Inter when they played them earlier. And he's not the only one, many of the folks I meet here really aren't all that knowledgeable about foreign leagues or players. They pretty much follow solely their own team.

Maybe its the fact that football is very cheaply available on TV is India and SE Asia and we get all the major European leagues on TV. Also, perhaps being a fan there you have to make an effort, you watch matches at midnight or even later and I guess when you are putting that much effort into something, you want to be good at it.
 

Johan07

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Players committing a professional foul on a counter then picking up the ball, jogging slowly backwards for 15 meters while their teammates get back on the right side of the ball. Then tossing the ball 3 meters up in the air to a place behind where the foul was committed.
City and Liverpool come to mind especially.
Football should look at handball; another sport where countering opportunities are extremely important and where they have a strict system in place to get rid of behaviour like this. After the whistle has been blown you dont touch the ball and if you are in possession of it you leave it where its at. Immediately.
Not doing so results in a yellow card. Almost strict liability.
And it works and really brings the tempo up in games.
In football one could start with the easy implementation to not allow players to pick up the ball with their hands after the whistle has gone. Or if its over the sidelines and its obvious that its the opponents throw. You dont touch the ball..
If you do: yellow card. It would remove a lot of timewasting, would not require any rule-changes just a stricter application of the rules already in place.
After that you could look at an even stricter application of messing with the ball after the play is stopped.
It is probably the most effective way to increase the tempo in a game and it would lead to more scoring opportunities.
 

CherryBoy

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  • Diving
  • Refs not booking players for diving
  • Players putting their hands before taking a corner( that's so heard mentality)
  • Sky Sports' frugality with their coverage (I.e. they don't even want to show fecking highlights on their lackluster YouTube channel)
  • Sky Sports punditry (flagrantly anti-Man Utd)
  • Racism
  • The inconsistancy of the handball and offside rule
 
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Karel Podolsky

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I am from SE Asia. Most football fans I know usually support a local club and support one big club (usually from EPL, La Liga or Serie A).
There are (minority) supporters who support more than one big clubs. Unlike me who still can enjoy watching football matches without supporting any side, Some people who follow more than one league usually take one club to support for each league he follows to get motivated getting up at 04.00am.

*04.00 am actually a perfect time to get up esp. For Muslims (I am in +8 GMT Zone). 01.00 -02.00 am k.o is the worst.

** I never really support any clubs but I admit I had a soft spot for some different clubs in certain era.

1. Lazio in the '90's.
2. Roy Evans Liverpool. :wenger:
3. Del Basque Real Madrid
4. Arsenal (early - mid '00s).
 

TheLastQuestion

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I think there's a whole thing about happening to be born near a good football club, staying there, growing up a season ticket holder, watching quality football, then judging other people for supporting your club.

To give my United story: I grew up seeing my dad, who was born in Salford, every other week. He'd moved away from Manchester as a teenager but was obviously a United fan by then. Early in his career he moved further away still, met my mum, had children, got divorced and moved further away again. Obviously he didn't change his club allegiance upon any of these geographical moves. My mum wasn't going to take me to local football so sometimes, when something could be worked out that involved him still getting to see my sister and he could get tickets, he'd take me to United. Despite living hundreds of miles away, my first football match was United vs Wednesday in 1993. How could I ever turn back from that, even if I wanted to?
I know what you mean, it can be annoying sometimes. I've been called a glory hunter by a guy who changed from Liverpool to spurs (the season spurs finally finished above pool), and a Liverpool fan who fully supported leicester when they won the league (bought a shirt and everything).

I had an awkward moment at work, where a Chelsea and Arsenal fan were saying the usual jokes about United fans, I pulled a ticket from the previous night's game out of my jacket. Asked them when they last went to a match - they both went quiet and the topic of conversation was changed quickly.

Bogus 'injuries'. Timewasting. Diving. Arsene Wenger. Arsenal. Liverpool. Injury time - why can all grounds not have a stadium clock which is stopped whe the ball is not in play and restarted once it is?
If they did this matches would last ~50% longer. Spectators would need to set aside more time and more players would get injured from fatigue. They'd have to set a new clock for 60 mins to roughly get a 90 min game.
 

KentSpurs

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Fans increasing the noise volume when the 4th official puts up the board to show how many minutes will be added on.

Footballers talking with hands over their mouths.

The term "bottled it".
 

arnie_ni

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Do you go to many/any United games out of interest?

One of my pet hates is people who "support" a team who have never been anywhere near the place.
Why should what ultimately comes down to money be a deciding factor in who can support what team?
 

Siorac

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It's doubly funny when it's people from huge Cities with giant clubs saying it.

Yes, please lecture me about not supporting my local semi professional pub team, random person from Madrid / Barcelona / Berlin / Manchester
I wouldn't exactly call Hertha BSC a giant but otherwise I agree.
 

IRELANDUNITED

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Liverpool - the players, manager and inparticular the large portion of clueless fans
 

Cascarino

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Talking with a hand covering your mouth like you're some kind of secret agent. No one cares what you're saying. Just stick to kicking a ball around a pitch, glorified court jesters.
It's to help the sound travel.
 

Chipper

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English pundits who pronounce foreign names completely wrong.
Foreign pundits who pronounce English names completely wrong. Not really, but they do it just as much in my experience. It's to be expected.

Been watching a few Ukranian and Russian streams lately, Shaw is 'Show'. Used to catch some Lithuanian streams too where they'd randomly put 'us' or 'as' on the end of everyone's names as well as pronouncing things incorrectly. It's been a while and can't remember which way round it was but we either had 'Wine Rooneyus' or 'Wine-us Rooney' up front.
 

OnlyTwoDaSilvas

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Bugs me when people seem to think you can’t support a team if you're not from the city or can’t/don’t get to many games. “F*** off and a support your local team!”. I mean, it’s not as if your local team is full of local lads. Your likely supporting players from the countries the so called arm chair fans are from. Chances are if everyone supported their local teams, the team you support would be no where near as good.
Yeah, the mantra that you simply have to support your local side is a bit disingenuous.

You should get to choose. Your local side could be a horrible club run by shysters that you feel no connection to. Just because you're born in Newcastle, you have to support that lot run by some cowboy who doesn't give a shit?

Most of my family are from in and around Greater Manchester, but I spent most of my childhood in West Yorkshire. I chose not to support Leeds based on every Leeds fan at my school being a right prick. Turned out to be a wise decision.
 

Mart1974

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I hate fans who get on the back of their own players, especially irrationally. I get to about 1/2 the home games via a group of lads who have season tickets in the Stretford end upper tier. There are regulars who spend half the game shouting rubbish at players like Lukaku. I was there on Saturday and stood next to a guy who was on Lukaku's back for the whole game up to the point he scored the winner. To be fair the guy looked a bit abashed and I did have a word with him.

it annoys me even further when it is a chunky or unfit or someone who looks like they have never kicked a football or sprinted 20 yards slating an athlete who has dedicated his life so far to football.
 

mannbeist

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Norwegians yelling in english when watching football, in a Norwegian football pub.
 

Mart1974

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Why is it that it’s always successful sides (United, Liverpool etc) that international fans support though? I doubt there’s a huge Irish following for Fulham.

I hate how people use stats rather than actually watching the game to form opinions on players.
Some of this relates to the migration of Irish people into the UK. I follow Utd because my old man was an Irish Catholic who moved to NW England and Utd were his local Irish Catholic club or at least the team that the local Irish Catholic community supported.