Do too many games spoil the sport?
Even Liverpool must put aside this year’s impressive season and start thinking about next year
Complaining about the amount of games in a football season has traditionally been the domain of grumpy old men. Priced out of watching their boyhood team and replaced on the terraces by a bunch of overpaid bankers from the City, they sit in their locals and grumble into their bitters about how the game has changed since the days when they used to watch players such as Stanley Matthews tearing down the wings.
Yet as the Liverpool post-mortem continued this week after their loss to AC Milan in the final of the Champions League, I began to understand the point of view of the old guard as they talked about how they’ll be concentrating on the league next season. The game has now reached a stage where there are so many competitions and so many games that football fans can barely indulge in the base emotions of their hobby - disappointment and elevation - before their priorities change as their teams work towards a fresh start only a couple of months away.
I guess it’s because of the never-ending nature of football. However joyous Manchester United’s celebrations at winning the title were, it was only a few weeks later that this victory was eclipsed by Chelsea’s FA Cup triumph. Similarly, any Chelsea fans would struggle to see their victory in perhaps the world’s most prestigious domestic tournament as consolation for falling to Liverpool in the Champions League and Man Utd in the Premiership.
As for the Scousers, those whose season has lasted the longest and who had the chance of greatest success, their minds are immediately forced to turn towards next season. Can it be any wonder that so many supporters fall back on the history of their clubs, considering any current success provides such short-lived satisfaction?
Perhaps this is why the close of season is so many fans’ favourite period. For the teams who are perennially mired down in mid-table obscurity, this is the time when they can dream of what could be. Their new African striker or Eastern European midfielder (or even Francis Jeffers, that old transfer window stalwart) could be their new golden goose, a ticket to unprecedented success.
It doesn’t matter if they know deep down in their hearts that their new signings will inevitably get injured or fail to settle in our British climate. For those few months, they can dream they’ve stolen the initiative from the big boys and that everything will be so different.
For those fans whose teams actually win something, it is the only time when they can justifiably call themselves the champions, for as soon as that competition starts up again, they are displaced. All that heartache, stress, jubilation and passion (and let’s not forgot the money required to follow your club) is ultimately wasted once August rolls around again. Once you’ve spent over nine months worrying about whether your team can become the best in the country, you’re also likely to be too knackered to enjoy it.
The World Cup could be seen as the one tournament that avoids this problem. Held every four years, its holders truly can put themselves forward as the best in the world for a significant amount of time. Yet possibly even the World Cup has been displaced as football’s Holy Grail by the annual Champions League. Can AC Milan’s victory be seen as a true reflection of the state of the footballing world today?
They may be proclaiming themselves as the best team in Europe, but this is slightly undermined by the fact that they finished a whole 33 points behind local rivals and Italian champions Inter Milan in Serie A. Not only that, but the catalyst of their victory over Liverpool was what can only be described as a flukey deflection.
The unfairness of football is in essence its greatest strength, entertainment-wise. It provides the sport with its one-off moments of greatness and drama. The problem is, as the grumpy men in the pub will tell you, the big businesses that control the game realise this, and you’re never more than a few weeks away from the next packaged ‘big game’.
