Advertisement

Friendlies are now impossible to ignore, even if we want to

Manchester City and Manchester United were due to play this week in China, but the weather had the good sense to intervene. To nobody’s credit, a meaningless friendly had meaning forced upon it. Some people appeared to want to make Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho suddenly care about an exercise that little to interest them beyond making sure their players weren’t injured, and that they would be prepared and fit to start the real competition of the Premier League in reasonable shape.

Instead of letting Chinese fans and supporters who had travelled from England enjoy the jaunty spectacle and the local booze, more was written than was truly dignified.

First, Guardiola and Mourinho were repeatedly quizzed about what their first meeting at their newest clubs meant. They were asked if they would shake hands. Even Mourinho, a man who is in love with aggravation more than he is with himself, couldn’t be bothered. Of course I’ll shake his hand, he said, desperately trying not to book his tickets to Dignitas there and then. Guardiola was similarly disinterested in getting involved in hoo-ha when it was only July. Some journalists were reduced this week to taking photos and videos of warm press conferences, instead of perhaps wondering whether their compulsion to publicly document their incredibly boring existence said more about their self-image than it did about the public’s appetite for their work. The heat, the tedious nature of the questions; it was all anyone else could do to not fall asleep.

It won’t stop here, though. Nobody will dial down the coverage of the friendlies. Heartbreaking though it is, obviously, there is no Emirates Cup this season, but nonetheless there will be no end of Five Things to Learn over the coming month and a bit. Instead of regarding slightly timber-laden men jog about a pitch in Asia, sweating profusely, and instead going back to bed, there will be those chugging away at their laptops. In Asia, sweating profusely themselves, pining for the sausage rolls back home in England, or in an office in England, sweating profusely themselves, pining for the sausage rolls in the 24 Texaco down the road, or in their own home on their isolated own, sweating profusely themselves, pining for the sausage rolls in their fridge but unable to take a break from liveblogging. Hundreds of tubby men, sweating, watching, pulling meaning from an almost contextless void. It would be primarily pathetic if it weren’t so dominatingly desperate to an overwhelming, suffocating degree. Oh look, alliteration.

Last summer, Louis van Gaal took Manchester United to America, shaped in his own image and rebuilt by his own transfers. They were successful against some of the best sides in the world. In retrospect, it is probably because they were still not so disheartened by Van Gaal that they were able to stick to his rigid, creativity-free instructions. Little fitness is required, after all, to pass it from left to right until the opposition gives up hope. If that opposition is knackered in the sun and merely preparing for games that matter, then it is a simple exercise to take advantage and look like the most organised side, and at that time, the most effective one, too.

It meant nothing, though. When the season started, it was obvious that the players had no interest in doing anything more than they had been doing in friendlies. There was nothing that was there to learn as America was the backdrop for glorified, stupefying training sessions, but that did not stop extensive coverage (as a mitigating aside, watching Zlatan Ibrahimovic smash John Terry in the face, again and again with the ability to pause live television, in erotically slow motion was, admittedly, magnificent consolation). It clearly holds no instruction for the rest of the year, though - it was not as if anyone was giving over breathless blogs to how exceptional Leicester were in pre-season. And if they were, we would have been justified in ignoring what would have been wild guesswork. That is no criticism of guesswork - that is what almost all sport writing necessarily is - but the baseless nature of writing about friendlies.

It is almost impossible to dispute the criticisms of international friendlies. That they are soulless exercises in cash generation, the vas deferens of the pecuniary spurt that globalised football has become. But there is little point in getting worried anymore. Football clubs largely left their communities a long time ago, and it leads to conflicting emotions. For fans of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and the rest, they may very well be repelled by the whole gaudy carry-on as it is presented. But if they are, it is hard to square with the wish that they remain at the top of the table, that they compete and that they have to spend millions to do so. It is not a direct contradiction, more an unfortunate one, but if you now want your team to want trophies, you will almost certainly have to accept that they will need to partake in defending human rights abuses, advertising Uruguayan snacks, and having cameos in the latest Ghostbuster films. On the one hand, we all miss the days of Roy Keane snarling on the pitch, but on the other hand, we are probably missing out not watching him being forced to take part in a promotional Vine for the BFG. “What’s the F stand for? ‘Fuck off?’”

But none of it will stop. Too many embittered bloggers, too many cash-strapped newspaper websites and too many desperately bored fans exist for their to be any other option. For now, the future holds the prospect of more blogs, more minute-by-minutes, more things to learn, more games to play in 400% humidity and more arguments on Twitter. So, you might ask me, what is the solution? Well, there is only one: be sure to join me next Friday when I liveblog a friendly, it’s going to be amazing.