"I suppose I hark back to the days when maybe people watched football matches. They talked about what happened over 95 minutes and not what happened within 40 seconds of the 95 minutes because that's all my interviews ever seem to be, you know? Was it a penalty? Was it not a penalty? Should the referee give a free kick? Was it handball? And I would sometimes like to get back to discussing how well we did in the second half , how well Newcastle did in the first half."
This excerpt from Roy Hodgson's interview with the BBC was broadcast on Match of the Day 2 last night, and immediately followed by a discussion amongst the pundits about a notionally significant refereeing decision. Those involved in making the programme presumably didn't see the irony. Confected outrage and manufactured controversy has become a massive part of modern football culture and it’s to nobody’s benefit.
The actual business of football is so often overshadowed as a result. It's something the media is especially guilty of and creates a narrative where officials are regularly seen as the deciding factor in a game. Mistakes made by players and managers are excused as undue prominence is given to contentious refereeing calls. Many supporters follow suit, and rather than analyse their own team’s failings, attribute defeat to a rogue decision instead.
This creates an unhealthy and accusatory atmosphere. Those trying to impose order and apply the laws of the game as best they can in difficult circumstances are treated as the enemy, an extra impediment to be negotiated on the way to victory. This shouldn’t be the case. It allows managers to easily redistribute the blame for a bad result and avoid any uncomfortable questions about their own role.
Post-match interviews blend into one, becoming an insipid and unnecessary exercise from which nothing of worth is ever gleaned. Managers are encouraged to set the agenda and highlight specific instances where they were supposedly wronged. For fear of losing access or compromising favourable relationships, their views, no matter how far divorced from reality, are rarely challenged. Everyone goes through the same empty motions, week after week.
As Hodgson suggests, our instinct is always to focus on a narrow range of talking points. Penalties, potential handballs, dives and offsides take a strange precedence over the more important dynamics of a match. If a single goal ends up separating the two teams, even a decision several stages removed from the ball finding the net will often be put up for debate. Perhaps a free kick could have been awarded a minute or so before, allowing incompetent defenders to be let off the hook for multiple subsequent mistakes. Whole passages of play are rendered irrelevant at a stroke.
There are undoubtedly more interesting and relevant things to talk about, and reporters need to start by asking the right questions. There are all sorts of layers and angles to explore. Who knows, it might even make the whole experience a bit more rewarding for all concerned – managers included. The resulting headlines probably won’t be as dramatic but too much store is already set by shock tactics. A little sense of perspective wouldn’t go amiss sometimes.
