Admittedly I am a newer soccer fan. The 2006 World Cup helped me truly fall in love with the beautiful game to the point where I began to actively follow it online and on TV. Since that World Cup, I have become a fanatic, following multiple teams on multiple continents while writing for this site, starting a manuscript, and spending way more than I should on memorabilia. The modern game is a great product for a busy sports fan like myself – matches last two hours, there is a definite flow, the game comes across beautifully on HD, and the personalities are not hidden behind equipment or masks. This is why soccer is now taking off like pundits have predicted it would for years – it is a sport for this era of fandom.
As a fan, I also vociferously read many different books on the sport, which is one of the reasons I have reviews on this site. Recently I have had the pleasure of reading David Goldblatt’s new book and am slogging through the excellent Red or Dead. These books – and others I’ve read – describe a sport I’ve never known. In this sport, the fans stand through the game, clubs generally have the same spending level, and rarely do they blow wads of cash to catch up with the oligarchs only to fall into administration. Not everything was awesome of course; I am happy there aren’t the organized racist chants and unsafe stadiums. However, there is something interesting about this earlier era of soccer that makes me wish we could be living through it again.
As an example, I am an Arsenal fan. If the Gunners continue their current pace, they will finish out of the top four for the first time in forever. In Red or Dead, when Liverpool finished 7th in 1965 the year after winning the league, they rebounded to again win the league the following year. If Arsenal finish 7th this year, the mountain to climb the win the league the following year would be nearly insurmountable, as they would lose out on European revenue which is almost required to win the Premier League nowadays. It’s even worse for non-big seven teams – can you ever imagine Blackburn winning another title unless they are bought by a billionaire with unlimited access to funds?
I want the Premier League to be more democratic, where more teams have access to titles and finishing in the top four every year is needed to compete for a title the next year. However, I throw this question out to soccer fans that have been following this game longer than I – should we new fans be yearning for soccer as it as, say, before the Premier League era? If you are a newer fan like me, do you agree with me that the “good ol’ days” sound good?
