Taking sides
The English Premier League kicks off a new season today, with seemingly perennial favorites Manchester City taking on Burnley. Of course, that’s a massive overstatement. Not many years ago—before the influx of UAE cash by Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour—City was a reliably perennial disappointment, especially compared with its crosstown rival, Manchester United. Those roles have reversed, reflecting the fundamental nature of elite sports—both individual and team success ebbs and flows, and fans can never be sure when they will feel in the penthouse or the outhouse.
So, what if you’re a fan looking for a team? It’s not an idle question in an era of globalized sport and the ability to watch almost any game in any competition at any time. As the former coach of the Italian soccer team, Arrigo Sacchi, famously noted, “Football is the most important of the least important things in life.” You can extend that sentiment to sport generally and, while I’ll watch any sport at any time, it’s always more fun when you’re invested in the success of an individual or team.
When I landed in the States, baseball was my adopted game of choice. It reminded me of cricket—lots of arcane rules, lengthy periods of boredom punctuated by thrilling action, and a real sense of shifting momentum if you paid close attention. Since it was the early aughts, the Yankees became my team and that was both a lazy and selfish choice: it was the extended era of Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Mike Mussina, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, and too many other stars to name. Supporting a team that wins all the time is easy.
Next came the National Football League, which kicked off its pre-season last night. It’s overly complicated, over-engineered, and perfectly reflects the only country in which it’s seriously played (which doesn’t stop the American media declaring the Super Bowl winner the “world champion”). It’s war in helmets and shoulder pads; a command-and-control spectacle that seeks to eliminate individual creativity in service of following the orders of the head coach, offensive and defensive coordinators, and the dozens of other tablet-computer-wielding non-athletes on the sidelines. Oh, and it’s made for television. Games should last 60 minutes but instead take about three hours.
It’s also great fun, of course, if you can set aside the nagging sensation you’re basically watching people get brain damage. But who to support? For a long time, I was agnostic—I tried to just appreciate the extravaganza. However, I was increasingly surrounded by Buffalo Bills fans—fans who had spent a lifetime hoping the team would finally win it all, reminscing about a golden run in the 1990s when it reached four consecutive Super Bowls (also known as “losing four Super Bowls in a row”).
For the past couple of years, the Bills were in the ascendancy. The team has an elite if error-prone quarterback, an elite if fickle wide receiver, and elite if injury-prone defensive star, and only two years ago narrowly lost a playoff game generally regarded as one of the greatest ever. But it’s also hard not to feel the team’s moment has passed. Pundits who before last season rated the Bills as Super Bowl favorites now rank it maybe sixth-best in the NFL, and it seems likely western New York’s favorite team is about to enter another long hibernation.
This is also the inflection point when true fans are defined. The whole point with sport is that you lose far more than you win: in baseball, you’re a superstar if you hit the ball three times out of every 10 at-bats (try telling your boss you’ll do a good job just 30% of the time and see what happens). There are 32 teams in the NFL. Twenty in the Premier League. Thirty in Major League Baseball. Only one team in each league wins the title. As a fan, your odds of enjoying a champagne shower hover somewhere between 3% and 5%, so true fans learn to hope for the best but brace for agony.
Having said that … I do like Manchester City. I still don’t have a formal Premier League team—a friend supports Tottenham Hotspur, so I’m certainly adjacent to perennial disappointment*—and it affords me the chance to watch any game purely on its merits. But there’s something utterly beautiful about the style of play City manager Pep Guardiola has fashioned that provides moments of creative brilliance that truly take your breath away. And, at the end of the day as the planet literally burns and war rages and we all just want a little flicker of light, isn’t that what sport is for?
* Maybe the tide will turn this year, with Aussie Ange Postecoglou taking the helm and already pushing the team to be more fluid and attacking.