It is ok to not love the sport

Football or soccer is the game of billions. It is at its core, a simple game that everyone can access. It should always preserve and expand that identity.

In the past few years, the sport and its identity have been under attack. It’s been threatened from every side.

Some want to keep women out of the game. Some want only to maximize profitability. The ever increasing the number of games, the many Superleagues, the health concerns (concussions and ACLs) have been relentlessly debated and I won’t relitigate them. Those are societal problems beyond the scope of a blog. I won’t harp on False 9s or Tiki Taka either. Anything you do between the lines to win is fine with me.

The attack the worries me the most is the push to alter the sport. I write in defense of mistakes. There’ll be mistakes. Players make mistakes, referees make mistakes, coaches make mistakes. You cannot legislate mistakes away. They are all part of the game. A game played by humans. Humans that you can and should influence to err in your favor.

I promise you that a insipid simulation of rosters by cost is not more fun than watching an upset. If the refs missed an offside that only a computer could have seen in real-time? That’s good. That’s fodder for trash talking your rivals.

No one pushing to make the game “fair” or “better” actually loves football. They might love the idea of kicking a ball around to win. They do not love football. Its culture, its people and its identity. No amount of rules changes will make you feel better when your team loses. For example, introducing the video assistant referee (VAR) put more pressure on poorer leagues. Where it exists, the conversation moved immediately to “transparency” and “mistakes in the booth”. All of it are horseshit.

These people don’t watch the game, rather focusing on stats and box scores without any context. It’s prime example is the expected goal (xG) models. In short they evaluate shots (and nothing else) on a variety of factors: distance to the goal, angle, and a defender in near (<1 m) are the most common and statistically significant. Aside from these findings being obvious, they require insane amounts of data and ignore so much about the game that make the statistic irrelevant. There are many ways (angles, speed and direction) to strike a ball, there are many other variables, particularly where the ball is coming from and how. All of which are much harder to evaluate, require knowledge of the sport and cannot be done by box score analysis. The right move might be another pass but xG does not see it. The box score won’t see it. There’s a whole Ted Lasso season about a player learning this very lesson and yet.

However, box score analysis is only the symptom. Game knowledge is low among this cohort. Their sole window into the game is through the lens of entertainment. Do you know what is not entertaining? Defense. Working the referees. Shortening the game. Committing strategical fouls. Putting your team no matter how poor, out-matched or technically challenged it is in a better position. The “fans” that don’t love the sport call it “shithousery”. The term itself betrays the lack of knowledge. The contempt for strategical thinking. Above all, the desire to eliminate the humanity of the sport.

Yesterday, a new “blue card” was proposed and after the backlash retracted. It shows everything that is wrong with this attack on football. It creates a temporary exclusion form the game (10 minutes) and it is to used for “disrespecting the referee” and to punish strategical fouls, the so-called cynical foul. The problem is there are already rules for these things. Yellows for disrespect, reds for fouls in obvious goal opportunities along with yellows when it is not obvious.

Who would benefit from this rule?

Would teams not stop a counter-attack for fear of being down a player for ten minutes? Or would these teams play even more passively with fewer risks?

Why is giving referees even more power over results good? It won’t get referees more respect that is for sure. Who thinks that empowering an authoritative figure to punish dissent makes the game for inclusive? Do you really think that referees have that thin of a skin that they need another weapon and mandate?

Better teams, richer teams, whiter teams would benefit. Teams full of rules lawyers and no technique. Teams devoid of spirit and gumption. Maybe in that world the U.S.A. men can win a World Cup.

There’s a lot that can be done to make it better. However, it is not by changing the rules and complaining about gamesmanship. Football needs to bring more people in. What we need is more opportunity for poor people to attend, more access to health and conditioning. The sport need better support for women so that they can be truly professional. The games have to be more meaningful to their communities – empowered local leagues, more rivalries and plenty of lower divisions.

In the end, for football to be a sport for all, there has to be a way for anyone to win a game. The best team cannot always win. You cannot just throw money at the problem. It is not an actuary competition.

It is ok to not like football. There are other sports.