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The ‘fraud culture’ of modern football

“You’re only as good as your last game” has never been more true than right now. As a society we’ve become accustomed to things we desire or want being readily available and if they aren’t, we riot. A lot of the time we purchase goods that we don’t necessarily need but internally feel we must in order to remain amongst the status quo. Such things as 4K televisions that most people don’t even have a channel to watch it in its full, all-mighty glory, but to not have one means you’re missing out, somehow. Mobile phones are the same as every six months we trade in our old ones so we can get that tiny bit of extra battery life and various features you’ll probably never use. Football has its own dark side at the moment.

We wax lyrical about the long tenures Sir Alex Ferguson and Dario Gradi enjoyed at Manchester United and Crewe Alexandre respectively, how loyalty and stability were key to making teams grow. Snap judgments over a poor run of results showed a lack of understanding or respect to the team’s status and previous achievements. After all, every side experiences a rocky patch throughout a season and it’s how you respond to that which matters, right? Well, today, that’s wrong.

Now I’m going to generalise here because as with every group in society there are many exceptions to the rule, but it’s the new generation of fans which seem to react the worse. Social media is a powerful tool for clubs to grow their fanbase and promote their brand but it’s also a gateway to constant abuse and ridicule.

When the team sheets are released you’d be forgiven for thinking Mr Burns had accidentally released the hounds at the same time. “How can he pick him when he’s been terrible this season?” “I hope he’s injured because if he’s just being rested, we’re doomed” are some of the nicer comments which greet that announcement we’ve waited all week to see. Others prefer to insult or abuse their own team’s social media feed because the line-up doesn’t meet their own expectations.

It happens during a match and especially at the end of 90 minutes too. There’s an incessant need to complain even when there’s so much to be positive about. The ‘let’s not get carried away’ attitude, positive or negative, has been replaced with an ungrateful desire to see perfection week upon week. It’s not enough to struggle but ultimately beat a weaker opponent. And losing is something that just won’t be tolerated, as unbeaten streaks are all the norm these days, eh?

I sense we’ve become spoilt not only with the amount of football on the show but the quality as well. We demand perfection but how often does it really exist in our lives? Is your newly bought smart phone perfect? Probably not. Is your new 65” 4K TV perfect? Probably not. So why then do we expect our football teams to be perfect?

The irony being that those imperfections are what makes this sport the most popular one on earth. If the best group of players always won then there’d be no fun to have. The robotic nature of results favouring the higher quality teams every week, without fail, would take away the joy we all find in the unpredictably of football. Tactics, injuries, luck or pure brilliance can swing a match in the unlikeliest of ways yet we still find so much to complain about.

Moving back to social media, it gives people a platform they’d not normally have: the ability to interact with players and football teams. It was much more of a closed shop a few years ago but today it’s an open book. You can use this to send messages of good will to your favourite players or, I guess, hate to those you dislike. Some are soulless PR departments but either way, the chance they could respond or acknowledge you, as a fan, is something special.

However there are two types of people on social media: the genuine and the not so genuine. I guess, in a way, the same as in real life. Some people post in order to further an agenda or please their ‘online mates’, who more often than not have a player from their team’s name in the handle, along with ‘Simply’, ‘Amazing’ and sometimes with an ‘x’ substituting a letter because their great idea has already been taken. It’s about the banter, lads. The race to post ‘Daddy’ or ‘Delete’ whenever a club account tweets or a hot take about how Lionel Messi isn’t that good and your 10 sub-tweets to back it up.

As for the genuine lot they are so often lost in the sea of the ego-massaging that goes on between the not so genuine groups. Next time a club account posts something on social media, give it five minutes and then check the replies to see if I’m wrong. Sadly it’s those rational folk who decide the likes of Facebook and Twitter aren’t for them, often muddying their opinion of the fanbase and to some extreme degrees their love for the team they support.

Manchester City lost to Barcelona last night and immediately you knew you’d be greeted with ‘Pep Guardiola is fraud’ posts. Now if every manager that’s lost to Barcelona is a fraud there aren’t many good managers left. But they lost to Spurs and drew with Everton and Celtic I hear you cry. Real fraud material there.

Well, Barcelona have already lost twice in LaLiga so I guess they’re frauds. Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid have both drawn three matches so they’re rubbish as well. Bayern Munich have drawn twice already, definite frauds. Juventus lost to an Inter Milan side that finished 24 points behind them last season and drew at home to Sevilla, a team which finished seventh in LaLiga. Frauds. Manchester United have won one Premier League match since the end of August. Frauds. Liverpool lost to Burnley! Yep, frauds too. Arsenal lost to Liverpool! Tottenham are unbeaten in the Premier League but drew to West Brom! They’ve both been found out. Frauds everywhere.

It’s the same when it comes to players as well. Score 50+ goals in the previous five seasons but struggle to find your form and you’ve become, you guessed it, a fraud. Become the best player in the world but fail to win a major trophy with your national team, despite its problems, and you’re a fraud too. When you do fancy flicks and tricks but people want to classify your style as disrespectful, even though it’s that style which made everyone fall in love with Samba football, is definite fraud material. Speak your mind, win everything there is to on the domestic and international stage, but cut your sleeves and you’re an anti-national fraud.

Let’s just name it fraudball and be done with it.

And yes, I know, the reason people post these type of comments is because they want a reaction (or a retweet from their mates). Respond and call them wrong and you’re “triggered”. The sad part is different opinions and the unpredictability is why we spend so much of our time talking or watching football. You rate a player but someone else doesn’t, no problem. Debates can be fantastic. However so much is lost nowadays on petty point-scoring and insults as opposed to a conversation.

We need the imperfections. I don’t think Guardiola told Fernandinho to slip or Claudio Bravo to save a Luis Suarez shot 10 yards outside of his penalty area. With 10-men, not many sides escape the Camp Nou with a narrow defeat - some even struggle when they’ve got 11! It’s those errors, unforced or otherwise, which create debate. It’s important we don’t lose the enjoyment of following football to the ‘fraud brigade’ and their need for banter.