I grew up with four older sisters, all with varying levels of involvement in football. However, one of my older sisters had no interest in football at all, and when she started following rugby and Formula 1, her indifference turned into outright antipathy. When I was younger, she would say that footballers were too out of touch with the real world, and that the whole sport made her a little anxious.
I have only once seen her willingly engage in a football discussion. It was in June 1996, minutes after David Seaman had saved two penalties for England in the Euro 96 quarter-finals against Spain. A few minutes after the final whistle blew, amid celebrations in the garden across our road, the phone rang.
I picked it up and it was Kim. She just screamed, ‘I love your goalkeeper!’ That’s the only time she’s ever been willing to talk to me about football. That summer, David Seaman’s performances for England made him a national hero. It takes a long time for the wheels to turn in international football because of the irregular schedule, but it still feels completely absurd that Seaman took England’s No. 1 spot in his 30s.
The wider football fandom couldn’t understand why Arsenal fans held him in such high regard. That summer, everything changed. Penalty saves against Scotland and Spain in culturally significant tournaments (in fact, culturally significant moments in British popular culture in general) changed Seaman’s opinion overnight. Everyone else finally saw what we Arsenal fans had been able to see.
It’s a very satisfying feeling when the country embraces one of your players and you can tell everyone that you were right about them from the beginning. I had a very similar experience when I came back to college after a summer break in 2004.
My roommate Will knew the onion well and came close to a professional football career (he took the academic route rather than the YTS route available to him, but continued playing in the 9th and 10th divisions until his early 30s). Throughout the Invincibles season we debated Ashley Cole’s defensive abilities. Will was convinced that Cole was a great attacker but a terrible defender.
I argued with him about it often. After our excellent performance at Euro 2004, especially against Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal, I arrogantly asked Will if he would keep his place after the summer break. He smiled. ‘No, mate. How wrong was I?’ It was a sweet victory.
But there are also many downsides to ‘sharing’ ‘your’ player with a country. David Seaman received the most public criticism when he was rudely lobbed by Ronaldinho during England’s defeat to Brazil in the 2002 World Cup. Being lobbed by Ronaldinho made more sense to the public as Brazil’s talent became more apparent. In 2002, most people didn’t see the context.
I had a three-hour English test during the game. My teachers told me that if I wanted to know my score after the test, I could just ask Mr. Guy, one of the English department heads. Mr. Guy was an Arsenal season ticket holder (is he still one?) and used to sit a few blocks from me at Clock End. As soon as I left the test room, I ran straight to him.
‘2-1 Brazil,’ he whispered. Oh. He looked at me again. ‘Worse, they’re blaming Seaman for the winner. He was thrown in from a distance.’ Oh. Again. We both instinctively knew what was going to happen. There’s a special kind of irritation when ‘your’ player is made the scapegoat and blamed for the country’s elimination from international competition.
International tournaments attract a wide range of audiences, many of whom are not football experts (although, dear readers, they are). Many viewers are well-informed about football, but they only watch England during the tournament summer, so they don’t have the full picture (I don’t watch many England friendlies, and at best, my track record is spotty in the qualifying matches).
When things go wrong, it’s a messy mix. There are ignorant people (let’s be honest), there are people who aren’t ignorant but suffer from tribal club bias, there are people who want to pass the buck, and there are those of us who suffer from tribal club bias who want to pass the buck and tell others how little they know (cough).
Oddly enough, I had a similar experience at the 2018 World Cup, but a little different. At the time, I was writing about the Brazilian national team for a website called Sambafoot. I had been watching all their games since 2013. I knew the team inside and out. I also loved Gabriel Jesus, and I felt that when he came into the team at the age of 19, he completely transformed the team.
When it comes to the World Cup and the public discourse around it, England is an oasis of tranquility compared to Brazil. Brazil has a population of 210 million, and many consider Brazil’s World Cup record a big part of their patriotic identity. It’s really important. Brazil’s games outside of the World Cup are not widely watched. When Brazil plays in the World Cup, the whole country watches.
And the whole country is emotionally invested. This is a huge, young country with no military history, and it feels like it is being ignored by the world because of the ghosts of America, Asia, and Europe. The soccer World Cup is the only time the world talks about Brazil as a superpower. It means much more than sports.
Gabriel Jesus failed to score in the 2018 World Cup and Brazil lost to Belgium in the quarterfinals. Both of these are considered national humiliations, not to mention sporting disappointments. But I watched Brazil and knew that the tournament did not represent Jesus’ ability or what he brought to the team.
I knew that his explosive partnership with Neymar had been damaged by the latter’s rebellion and his desire to win games on his own. I knew that his role was to be Neymar’s foil, and that this role was partly damaged by Neymar’s protagonist syndrome and sudden refusal to cooperate with his teammates (the loss of the underrated Renato Augusto in midfield was also a factor).
Jesus was largely responsible for the aftermath of that tournament. He was a striker, he didn’t score, Brazil didn’t win. That was it, and there was no room for nuance in this scenario. I tried to argue that point with people, but few people cared. Fewer than usual. It’s strange that he was a Manchester City player at the time and later an Arsenal player, but I felt frustrated on his behalf as much as I invested in him.
England reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup and that summer was the summer I felt the strongest connection with the England team since 1996. That was partly because Southgate seemed to be building something I could finally invest in and, frankly, it was easier because Arsenal were not involved at all. Danny Welbeck was the only Arsenal representative in that squad.
I found it easier to feel comfortable and invested in England as a team in its own right. I lost some of that inherent but ever-present tension that Arsenal players feel when they make a mistake, are blamed for something, or worse, are misunderstood. The well of discussion about England is completely tainted by the club’s biases, and when a player from the club is involved, you can’t help but get involved in that internal squabble.
So this tournament I went back to that sensitivity around England games, remembering Adams being called a donkey, Seaman being called a idiot, Cole being called a substandard defender. Not only is England underperforming, but there are two key Arsenal players in the team, and on top of having to endure boring football, there is the stress of people misunderstanding Declan Rice.
Because I am precious and stupid and suffer from my own club biases and I can’t ignore the noise. Instead, like many of you, I try to fight the tide and add meaningless noise. And I keep hoping for that moment when Bukayo Saka scores a goal into the top corner and my football-apathetic sister calls me to tell me how much she loves the Arsenal right winger.
