The Football Moral Police

[MikeKing]

The guy decided to make this thread personal (how on earth it got to that stage is beyond my understanding) by sharing his personal problems to a group of football fans he doesn't know, in order to gain sympathy for a footballer whom the vast majority of United fans dislike. That's over the top and totally unnecessary.

All this "top red" business is ridiculous. No side is right or wrong, no side is better or worse. It's simply a case of personal opinion and how you feel regarding the subject of tribalism in football.

I think you might have read that wrong, guy. If someone doesn't let you know why they feel a certain way, you would be guessing, especially on a forum where you don't know the person. He let us know the reason he had sympathy for Karius, i don't think he forced it on you or tried to make you like him.

I agree, this "top red" term, i've never liked it but also i have never hung around those people, only heard of them. But regarding tribalism in football i think it is right, it belongs, but then there is wrong. I've never liked the mob-mentality towards individuals, because i don't think it belongs in society point blank. There is still no gay footballers currently in the PL, which is just false. But there is a reason for that.
To cut it short, there is fun, and theres nastyness. It might be a fine line but it needs to be there i think. Feeling bad for Karius or Salah is certainly not wrong even if it doesn't sit right with you.

 

[Random Task]

I think you might have read that wrong, guy. If someone doesn't let you know why they feel a certain way, you would be guessing, especially on a forum where you don't know the person. He let us know the reason he had sympathy for Karius, i don't think he forced it on you or tried to make you like him.

Personally I think he was attempting to gain levity by playing the victim card. That's just my opinion and it could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time I've misread something on the Internet. In any case I don't think it was relevent to the current discussion regardless of his motives.

I agree, this "top red" term, i've never liked it but also i have never hung around those people, only heard of them. But regarding tribalism in football i think it is right, it belongs, but then there is wrong. I've never liked the mob-mentality towards individuals, because i don't think it belongs in society point blank. There is still no gay footballers currently in the PL, which is just false. But there is a reason for that.
To cut it short, there is fun, and theres nastyness. It might be a fine line but it needs to be there i think. Feeling bad for Karius or Salah is certainly not wrong even if it doesn't sit right with you.

I largely agree with you here but sometimes it cannot be helped. When a person holds a minority opinion and then chooses to argue his case against the majority - which he did with admirable aplomb - that person will likely find himself in a 1 vs X position. There is a choice here, no one if forced to do anything against their will.

That said, I agree with much of your post. The lack of gay footballers was a little weird though.

 

[villain]

It is not about having sympathy for them at all. It is for one of the best Egyptian player

Injuries happen all the time.

Welcome to the Bad Human Being club!

I wear it with pride

 

[villain]

I actually feel more sorry for Karius if anything.

 

[Sky1981]

Do you moral police thinks that if the situation is reversed and it was navas that made the blunder the scouse would care?

 

[kouroux]

Injuries happen all the time.

I know brah, it is just that the African wants to see him the best African player at the World Cup

 

[MikeKing]

I largely agree with you here but sometimes it cannot be helped. When a person holds a minority opinion and then chooses to argue his case against the majority - which he did with admirable aplomb - that person will likely find himself in a 1 vs X position. There is a choice here, no one if forced to do anything against their will.

That said, I agree with much of your post. The lack of gay footballers was a little weird though.

Not anything weird about it. Hypothetically, if Karius came out as gay tomorrow, i think he would need to quit football at the highest level to keep his mental health. That is when you know something is wrong, hence my reference to the mob-mentality thing. I know this is "policing" but i think its necessary in certain areas. Not sure who you were talking about, the dude earlier in this thread? Sure arguing against a whole lot of people is tiring, not a lot of people try to.

 

[villain]

I know brah, it is just that the African wants to see him the best African player at the World Cup

Maybe - tbh I feel no type of way about him.
Plus Nigeria will still be there.

 

[Aboutreika18]

Maybe - tbh I feel no type of way about him.
Plus Nigeria will still be there.

Some of us have looked forward to Egypt finally qualifying after their golden generation of 2006-10 missed out.

Their best player potentially missing out would be a huge kick in the teeth.

Nigeria almost always qualify and generally stink up the joint. Wish Ghana or Algeria had qualified, at least they generally seem to show some quality against bigger sides.

 

[villain]

Some of us have looked forward to Egypt finally qualifying after their golden generation of 2006-10 missed out.

Their best player potentially missing out would be a huge kick in the teeth.

Nigeria almost always qualify and generally stink up the joint. Wish Ghana or Algeria had qualified, at least they generally seem to show some quality against bigger sides.

I understand from Egypt’s perspective but I can’t bring myself to have any sympathy for a Liverpool player outside of personal tragedy that’s bigger than football.

And yeah it’s a shame Ghana won’t be there we need to shake things up a bit anyway.

I think nigeria will do well, but we shall see

 

[Robbo's Shoulder]

Empathy, empathy, everyone's got it emp.... oops, sorry, was watching Frankie Howard during the week.
No empathy whatsoever in a football match, real life yes.
Some posters do realise the hatred runs both ways here right?

Haven't laughed that much in years as i did to that 3rd goal. As others have said, the club ( yes the club, not just the supporters ) making a hero out of outright racist, sorry, i'll laugh long and hard at any misfortune that befalls that club.
Away days at Liverpool and Everton in the 80's didn't exactly endear me to the media fabricated, jolly, scouse persona either tbh.

 

[Handsome Devil]

It's really ironic that there is more sympathy for Klarius on here than among his team mates. Bale was the only one who offered him any consolation.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

There's a difference in me laughing at a person who due to their religion and in me laughing at a person due to the team him support. There has been wars due to religions. Football rivalry is all about banter.

A bit tangential but it merits mention that historically and around the world football rivalry can represent much more than just banter.

For instance football rivalry has encompassed intense religious conflict (Rangers-Celtic), extreme political rivalry( Livorno , Lazio and other Italian clubs), ethnic and tribal hatred (former Yugoslavia among others) and geographic turf wars(many South American rivalries). And those are just the examples my family/friends have personal experience in. So reducing the tribalism is a good thing IMO. I just think there are serious dangers when the "top fan" mentality is allowed free reign. For instance, just last week in Portugal we see the problems when "top fans" are given too much leeway by their club and the Sporting ultras attacked their own players and coaches!

The attitude I mean are people that say things like "I am not a football fan I am just an Arsenal fan". People whose association with their club is less about actually watching football and more about whatever cultural associations the club is about (whether its religion with the Old Firm in the 1960s or fanatical fascists associating with Lazio in the 80s or gang turf wars in Buenos Aires).

 

[Ekeke]

Well that was weird op. Just because you support a team thats a rival with another team, doesnt mean you have to be happy their player was injured and not question whether it was correctly punished

 

[Random Task]

Well that was weird op. Just because you support a team thats a rival with another team, doesnt mean you have to be happy their player was injured and not question whether it was correctly punished

Here we go again.

 

[King7Eric]

Well that was weird op. Just because you support a team thats a rival with another team, doesnt mean you have to be happy their player was injured and not question whether it was correctly punished

8 pages, mentioned multiple times by multiple folks but people still can't seem to get it. No one was happy that a player got injured, we were happy that Liverpool lost their best player. Since the loss favored us( the majority of Utd fans supporting Real last night) we weren't going to be acting all sympathetic. Shame for the player, good for us. If you want Ramos and the whole Madrid team punished with a 10 game ban for that I don't have a problem with that. Liverpool losing was what we wanted and I'm not gonna cry about how that was achieved.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

8 pages, mentioned multiple times by multiple folks but people still can't seem to get it. No one was happy that a player got injured, we were happy that Liverpool lost their best player. Since the loss favored us( the majority of Utd fans supporting Real last night) we weren't going to be acting all sympathetic. Shame for the player, good for us. If you want Ramos and the whole Madrid team punished with a 10 game ban for that I don't have a problem with that. Liverpool losing was what we wanted and I'm not gonna cry about how that was achieved.

Clearly read the OP and nothing else.

 

[Keeps It tidy]

Footballers have lives before and after Football. Rooting for players getting injured is disgusting no matter who they play for. And in this era anyone who played for us could have ended up at City or Liverpool and anyone who plays for those side could have ended up playing for us.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Good thing no one in here has been rooting for players to get injured then, isn't it?

Another one who didn't read the thread.

 

[adexkola]

Football (or any other sport) isn't that important to me that when a player gets injured my first thought is "oh awesome, it increases my teams' chances of winning".

It does, probably, and that can be viewed as a silver lining. But that's secondary to the actual fact that a person has experienced a setback in their professional career. And I'm supposed to be happy because it helps my team?

But again, it's not that important to me, so maybe that's the problem.

 

[MJJ]

The cringiest bit for me is hearing fans from hundreds of miles away talking about hating “Scousers” when they’ve never bloody met one. It seems a lot of our fans think supporting United means hating other teams more than supporting Manchester United. Liverpool losing last night was fecking brilliant but some people seem to want to rub their hatred of a team too far. How can you hate Liverpool FC if you’ve never even been to the north west of England?

This.

 

[Sandikan]

The cringiest bit for me is hearing fans from hundreds of miles away talking about hating “Scousers” when they’ve never bloody met one. It seems a lot of our fans think supporting United means hating other teams more than supporting Manchester United. Liverpool losing last night was fecking brilliant but some people seem to want to rub their hatred of a team too far. How can you hate Liverpool FC if you’ve never even been to the north west of England?

Don't agree at all.
You don't need to be wandering around Liverpool all day to hate that club.

 

[Rista]

Don't agree at all.
You don't need to be wandering around Liverpool all day to hate that club.

Agreed. That is similar to saying how can you like Manchester United if you've never been to Manchester, really. I'm not going to go into whether is that right or wrong but the great rivalry is not just a local thing, especially not these days. There are many Liverpool fans all over the world, the banter is not reserved just to the north west of England, although it's obviously different. I guess what I'm trying to say is, although being a local fan and a foreign fan is not the same thing, IF we can still consider foreign fans also as real fans, then there is nothing strange about them having a dislike for Liverpool FC.

 

[sunama]

Because some people value sportsmanship, I wouldn't call them the moral police.

WTF! Sportsmanship, to hope LFC win the game and that their player is not challenged/tackled?

People need to understand rivalry. A golden rule is never to hope that one of your rivals wins a match.
The love that Klopp and LFC get on this forum is ridiculous, IMO.

And regarding Salah - Ramos did not intend to injure him, but he did intend to get physical with him. And as Football is a semi-contact game, it is within the rules of the game.
Ramos is Madrid's captain and he did what he needed to. I only wish that we had players with that mentality in our team.

 

[sunama]

If that's the kind of football world you like, okay. Some decency and sportsmanship is something I always liked about sports. Sport has higher value than winning.

I accept that Ramos is a cNut.
But the "sportsmanship above winning" context is something that matters in a school playground.
In pro sport, after the school boys/girls have grown up, it's all about the winning. Winning is what counts. Winning is what gets you the plaudits and the prize money.

 

[NK86]

All the people crying foul here saying it's wrong to feel happy about a rival player's mistake in a game, have you lot never enjoyed sports bloopers?

If you haven't, then I feel sorry for you. If you have, then you lot are the biggest hypocrites on this forum.

 

[roonster09]

Didn't say it was real, it's about the message behind it

Read all the pages in this thread and it's glorious. People can't even understand very simple points.

 

[Handsome Devil]

Reading this thread has brought back all the hurt from that night in 2008 when that nice John Terry slipped while taking the penalty that gifted us the Champions trophy. Oh how my heart went out to him. Instead of us laughing, why couldn't both sets of fans have linked arms and done a victory lap up a giant rainbow to a land filled with unicorns.
I need to go and lie down now.

 

[Jev]

The real moral police of football are the ones who feel they get to decide how other fans should act, and that you can't be a proper fan if you are capable of acknowledging the qualities, sentiments or feelings of your rivals.

 

[tenpoless]

Ramos is a cnut, everyone knows about it. I won't say He's right and I do feel a bit sorry for Salah, He's overall a nice footballer. I can't hate him personally but I do hate the club He's playing in. So in that case I'm neutral. I do not approve Ramos' action and I also don't agree with it.

But guess what? it doesn't matter by the end of the day because even if Salah stayed on, there's a little chance He could've made a big difference because Karius had a nightmare.

 

[ti vu]

Dear God the idiots. Maybe if Salah didn't pull him first, but this is just too stupid and too salty.

It's not about the gif, but the message behind it

 

[Florida Man]

If that's the kind of football world you like, okay. Some decency and sportsmanship is something I always liked about sports. Sport has higher value than winning.

 

[Janson]

Yea let's talk about that in some months, when the damage that has been dealt is actually visible

 

[RoadTrip]

IMO Karius and Salah are two different things entirely.

Karius - a nightmare game in the making. Entirely the fault of blind faith by the manager. And entirely a situation which could have been avoided. Whilst I can sympathise with the trauma he went through, I don’t feel so bad for him because it was self inflicted.

Salah - I feel a lot more sympathy for him. Accident or no accident is not relevant. If he slipped and got injured I’d have felt just as much sympathy. It’s more that he had to miss the majority of a dream game and may miss a World Cup.

I am obviously not upset of the outcome, Liverpool losing was the most important thing. But it would have been better if Liverpool had lost and Salah wasn’t not injured.

 

[Rob67]

The moral police really need to get a grip.
Say that next season Liverpool and Madrid get to the final again. There are 2 scenarios that you, as a United fan, can choose from.

A. Liverpool suffer no injuries and no feck ups during the game and win.
B. A Liverpool player goes off injured and their keeper cocks up in hilarious
fashion, and they lose.

Which do you choose?
No apologies for how I feel but I don't give a shite about Salah, Karius or Liverpool and loved how it turned out.

 

[Janson]

ffs

This guy is something else.

 

[Devil77]

Add in I feel so sorry for Karius brigade.
How can you feel sorry for him if you would jump at the chance for him to repeat those mistakes in every game he plays next season?

Yup! Agree here. Don't want opponents to get injured (and Salah deserved better after his fantastic season), but if they screw up (like Gerrard's slip, Terry's slip etc), that's merely amusing.

 

[The red panther]

I'am happy to see Liverpool lose the CL final.

But I did feel sorry for Salah to be honest and Ramos is one of football's biggest cnuts. And the worst thing is he always gets away with it...

 

[Hawks2008]

The moral police really need to get a grip.
Say that next season Liverpool and Madrid get to the final again. There are 2 scenarios that you, as a United fan, can choose from.

A. Liverpool suffer no injuries and no feck ups during the game and win.
B. A Liverpool player goes off injured and their keeper cocks up in hilarious
fashion, and they lose.

Which do you choose?
No apologies for how I feel but I don't give a shite about Salah, Karius or Liverpool and loved how it turned out.

Obviously option B, but even if it is at the expense of Liverpool I still feel for the two on a human level.

 

[Member 90678]

It's all about united for me and united winning by any means! Offside goal, hand ball, Blind ref, dodgy penalty you name it.
I grew up in an era when players would "leave their mark" on another player and vice versa and this was accepted by everyone. There was no better tackle than one which was fair but took out the best player on the other team who then had to leave the pitch .
If steve Bruce/Hughes/Keane etc went into a 50/50 tackle won the ball and the other player came off worse and had to leave the pitch then not only was it a good tackle but it also had the cherry on the top!
If Ramos was in red playing for united in the Champions League final against Liverpool and he did that and it meant we would win then not only was it a good 50/50 challenge but he also got rid of their biggest threat then that sits just fine with me even if he intended to "leave his mark" on him
Ps on a human level I care about people with real problems in their lives not a footballer with a pulled hamstring/hurt shoulder!
I' m actually still laughing at Karius and have zero feelings for Salah.