I didn’t bother to watch Manchester City’s defeat to Lyon last night, at least not until it was virtually certain that they would lose. I joined the proceedings with the score at 3-1 purely for a bit of schadenfreude. Pep Guardiola, almost a hero when he was at Barcelona, is now the villain. A brilliant coach but only for as long as he has the very best players to coach. I’m sure there’s more to it than that – Sterling, anyone? – but to my eyes, his reputation is tarnished.
BT’s commentators made no effort to stay impartial and as time ran out Steve McManaman, unquestionably one of the worst pundits of them all, sounded almost tearful when he suggested that we all wanted English teams to succeed. Quite apart from the fact that City are owned by Abu Dhabi billionaires, the manager is Spanish and almost all the players aren’t from this country, not all of us did want City to win. I certainly didn’t.
I’m a little old school in that I generally only watch sports on TV when I like – I won’t go so far as to say support – one of the teams. I’ll watch every game Bristol Bears play in rugby union, I’ll watch every Wigan Warriors in Super League, I’ll watch Feyenoord, Barcelona and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club. So Manchester City v Lyon held little interest for me, other than wanting City to lose. That’s a very negative state of mind and I have enough negative states of mind without football, so rather than spend a couple of hours willing a negative result, I’ll not watch it. A cursory check late on yesterday convinced me to tune in order to see City lose. There was no euphoria. I felt slightly less unhappy that they had lost than I would have had they won.
If I’m old school, the huge amount of televised football has introduced a new school audience who will watch literally anything. Burnley v Crystal Palace? Bring it on. Hamilton v St Johnstone? Get the beers in. It doesn’t matter who wins, so long as I get to see a game, any game. A one day cricket international between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan? Bring me my scorebook.
McManaman’s patriotic gung ho attitude did remind me of the old days of how many people used to feel. English people wanted Scotland to win football matches when England had not qualified for a tournament. And people did want English teams to win European competitions because, well, they were English. I’ve never wanted Scotland to beat anyone in the same way as I have never wanted Manchester United to beat anyone.
At least Manchester City can have their time off now at the end of an arduous season in which they won…er…the League Cup. The team that left them trailing in the Premier League started pre season training yesterday. It never stops, does it, and next season I reckon I’ll watch less games than ever, especially with no fans attending games.
