Everybody loves a good story and sports fans are no different. Whether its Tiger Woods winning the US Open in 2004 on one leg, Boris Becker exploding onto the scene and winning Wimbledon as wide eyed seventeen year old or Floyd Mayweather JR taking on Miguel Cotto and then heading to prison, guilty of domestic abuse. The media cannot wait to write it and the public cannot wait to read it. The issue here is the extent to which people let themselves be guided by a certain narrative that gets attached to a particular issue. Whether it is an individual, an entire event or even one particular incident, it seems to me that more and more the story attached to it takes complete precedence over the action itself.
A typical example of this issue is the manner in which Manchester United have been covered by the media over the past 2 or 3 years. Whenever they have met with success either in the short term (i.e. victory in a "big"game) or the long term (wining a premier league championship) the same lines are trotted out time after time. "Their experience got them through", "they've been here before and know what do" and the Match of the Day motto "They manage to win when they're not playing well". The aim here is not to decry the importance of such attributes but merely to argue that they are nauseatingly overstated and often utilised out of little more than professional laziness on the part of certain reporters and pundits.
Take Manchester United’s victory over Blackburn Rovers a month or so ago. Struggling to find the breakthrough in a must win game, United eventually won via two late goals from Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young. Yet the classic narrative of "United leave it late" and such like overshadowed the events of the actual game. Little mention was given to the manner in which United realised that Blackburn were aiming to funnel everything United did into the middle of the pitch which they had deliberately congested. Equally little was made of how it was United's strategy of maintaining as much width as possible on both sides of the pitch that ultimately did for Blackburn, aside from the fact that most commentators were quick to highlight that Valencia had a good game.
Equally take United’s defeat to Manchester City, in the last past few weeks we have been told nonstop that Paul Scholes has been the single most important reason behind Manchester United's run to the title and that the experience that he and Ryan Giggs have brought to the team has been invaluable. Indeed such has been the widespread praise for Scholes that he managed to finished third in the Football Writers' Player of the season voting despite only returning to action half way through January. What should be embarrassing for the Football Writers is that this is as close to Scholes has ever come to winning the award despite at the height of his career being one of the best central midfielders in Europe for over a decade.
Yet despite this almost universal praise of Scholes in the media, after City's narrow victory, achieved as a result of a set piece, observers were arguing that it was Manchester United's midfield that was the weakest part oftheir side and that Scholes and Giggs were too old to carry on. On a radio station which shall remain anonymous an former premier league player was saying how much United needed Bastian Schweinstiger and that Scholes and Giggs had passed their sell by date. It seems ludicrous that two of the experienced players who people had been championing in recent months were now the single biggest reason for their failings. This cannot be apportioned to the fact that people enjoy blaming Scholes, Carrick and Giggs etc. For me it stems from the fact that a simple formula exists and that whatever Manchester United result occurs this formula is applied. Manchester United win=experience, getting the result even when not playing well. Manchester United defeat=midfield poor and too old.
If we move to Arsenal now and the same logic of narrative is applied in that by and large any Arsenal defeat or poor result is linked back to the two fundamental pillars of Arsenal criticism. Defensive vulnerability and lacking experience. Again I would agree that they are two areas where Arsenal have struggled in recent years but there have been plenty of games where it has simply not applied and in particular many Arsenal fans would agree that it was some of the clubs more experienced players who have let them down at crucial moments over the past few seasons.
William Gallas' tantrum at Birmingham for instance, Gael Clichy (who actually has a league winners medal to his name, and may have one more come the end of the season) deciding that 4-2 in a North London derby was a good time to tread on the ball, Cesc Fabregas deciding that the area of the pitch you want to try a back-heel against Barcelona in a Champions League knockout tie is the edge of your own penalty area. These are just some examples. It should also be noted that two of the biggest victims of both outside observers and Arsenal's fickle fans over recent seasons have been Andrei Arshavin and Tomas Rosicky even though both captain their national team and have won major honours over the course of their careers.
The major point is that for every time Arsenal have lost a game for not possessing the required "experience" to see it out, they have lost games for a number of alternative reasons and yet it usually gets linked back to these familiar strands.
Every club has their own narrative attached to it and sometimes you do wonder whether there is little more to it than purely laziness on the part of pundits. It seems to me that for all Liverpool's failings this season the blame seems to have landed almost exclusively on the players who were signed under the Dalglish/FSG regime, whilst it has gone almost unnoticed how players such as Carragher, Gerrard, Pepe Reina, Dirk Kuyt etc have performed just as inconsistently if not worse than some of the recent aquisitions.
The term for such a phenomena, when certain ideas get expounded and repeated so much that they become the standard narrative for individuals, is known as "group think" and is often connected with the United State's tragic misadventure into Vietnam. This rationale can be applied in all walks of life and football is certainly no exception.
Take Italian football for instance. Despite the height of catenaccio occurring over 40 years ago the same old clichés and adages are trotted out every time an Italian team or Italian manager is discussed. Despite some Italian teams being some of the most attacking and innovative teams on the continent in the past few seasons, Carlo Ancelotti's Milan and Walter Mazzari's Napoli being just two examples, pundits can't help but think that they will set out to be defensive and "nick" a goal. Worse still is when pundits discuss catenaccio without actually having any grasp on its actual meaning. Instead it has simply become a byword for deep defensive play and looking to play on the counter.
In their book, The Italian Job, Gabrielle Marcotti and Gianluca Vialli discuss this issue at some length and ultimately they draw the conclusion that a major factor in the way in which certain stories and narratives continually appear can be traced back to the British football fans psyche as a whole. Throughout their book Marcotti and Vialli look to draw comparisons between English and Italian football. One of their key findings is that in Britain football is still viewed and played very much for a sense of enjoyment and out of love of the game whilst in Italy football is still viewed far more seriously by fans and players alike. This translates to a far more serious coverage of the game from the media which can often result in page after page of tactical analysis in one of the country's many sports papers. Player ratings in particular are agonised over with every decimal point debated and discussed. Whilst in England player ratings are a bit of a joke with players often receiving 2 and 3 out of 10 in the tabloids.
Marcotti and Vialli concluded that the need for an "angle" and compelling story in England normally outweighs the actual course of a match or a season. The British are far more concerned for the story as it adds an element of fun and drama to the game whilst in Italy the fact that the result takes priority and this is reflected in the manner in which football is reported in the respective nations.
Another issue to consider is the need for broadcasters and media outlets to be open and approachable to new audience members. Surely part of the reason why programs such as Match of the Day continue to persevere with Gary Linekar's inane puns and the constant attempts to convey some form of "banter" is in the desire to continue to attract an audience who are not that concerned with premier league football but merely wishing to be entertained. A TV show or national newspaper that devotes significant air time or column inches to the finer points of the game are unlikely to see anything but a decrease in viewing and circulation figures.
This problem has certainly been compounded by the growing influence of the internet and 24 hour news channels which can provide constant information and highlights and as such the more mainstream institutions must attempt to win over as much broad support as possible, thus a plausible explanation why Mark Lawrenson thinks he is a television personality rather than a football pundit emerges.
As stated at the outset, these ideas and points are a million miles from being perfect and I am sure that many would totally disagree with them. Regardless, there does seem to be an almost obsessive desire to portray the story in Britain often at the expense of any real analysis based on actual events. I am not calling for all television broadcasts, newspapers and reports to become a matrix of unreadable stats and tactics boards. For those who desire such things there are numerous websites and publications who deal with such things. I do feel however some have gone too far in the need to constantly present clear definitive reasoning for an individual or a clubs successes or failings. But then again aren't we always told that everybody loves a good story.
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