There are a great many things in football fandom that are unsupp … let’s dispense with euphemisms and call them what they are: stupid.
Stupid things get in the way of discussing football, appreciating performances and enjoying debate about a game we love. Among the two stupidest is the idea that someone can hate a player — even as people do, which leads to the second stupid, stupid thing — the idea(l) of a player.
The easiest to dismiss of course is hating a player. If you love a club and the team attached to that club, you can’t hate a player. You just can’t. It’s illogical. As a supporter of a club, you want the club to have the best possible success, so as a supporter you are supposed to wish the absolute best for every last player on that roster because as they do well, the club that you love does well. It’s really simple when viewed that way.
“You just hate him” is a childish, dismissive way of stifling debate about a player. It makes the person on the other end into an unthinking fool, intellectually shackled to their emotions while also elevating the person who says it into this bright, shining beacon of truth.
It is also deeply silly.
When you watch football, a lot of football, enough football to provide you with context on not only the game and the players but the team and players you support, you come away with ideas and context. A player who is amazing might, in a broader context, become less so. If you have only ever had one candy bar that will be the best candy bar you will have ever had.
After you sample a lot of candy bars, you get ideas about that first candy bar. So it goes with players. The reason hating a player is silly is not only because it goes against what being a supporter is all about, but it is too often the view of someone who doesn’t watch football, only their ideas and notions.
None of this precludes people hating players, right? Ronald Araujo, the darling of Liverpool supporters, was and is actively despised by Barcelona supporters, many of whom sat in sulky silence when he played well, waiting for the moment when he didn’t to pipe up with a soul-affirming “A-ha! Told you he was a bum!” True hate is when you need a player to be bad, even if it hurts your team, so that you can say, “I told you so.”
Everything around that was stupid and often despicable because it not only damaged the debate around an excellent-but-flawed CB, but it likely had an effect on the player personally. And even then the haters smugly said, “Well, his head just isn’t ready. It’s good he is leaving.”
How a fanbase coalesced around virulent dislike for Araujo was one of the most repugnant things the FC Barcelona fanbase has ever done, and this fanbase has done some repugnant, shitty things in its history. Everyone behind it, who supported and perpetrated it, should be ashamed.
Such campaigns are detrimental to everything around the club, but they also allow supporters to dig into an idea about a player, which brings us to the other stupid thing, being so wedded to the idea and ideal of a player that not only can’t you discuss that player rationally, you automatically accuse anyone who isn’t as enamored of the idea as you, as “You just hate him.”
Frenkie De Jong is as adored as Araujo is reviled, and much of it is his idea(l). He arrived in Barcelona from that storied Ajax team that wound up being fools’ gold when everything shook out. He was supposed to be the answer to a lot of questions, the ultimate midfielder.
Busquets existed, Raktic existed, Pedri, Gavi, Casado, Bernal and through it all, De Jong never nailed down a spot to make his own. He was often in the XI and played lustrous football, but something seemed to always happen. People kept insisting that it was the manager, or the system, or the players around him. They cite managers talking about what a model player and nice guy he is, and strenuously object to anyone suggesting that the idea, the ideal is flawed.
Against Atletico Flick started Bernal, even though De Jong was fit, eventually subbing the Dutchman on for Brian Farinas, who started at right back. De Jong has also played center back this season.
When Barcelona signed Rodri everybody breathed a sigh of relief, then Rodri slotted into the XI alongside Pedri and Fermin Lopez. Rodri is, of course, another impediment to the ideal of De Jong who, let’s be clear here, is an excellent footballer. But as the season opened I noted that he would be a sub on starter wages, which is what he is.
Flick doesn’t hate him, Flick just has ideas about where the talents of his players should be used optimally and until now, when fit, De Jong isn’t a part of the XI. You don’t have to be a “hater” or someone who “doesn’t know football” to note this reality and wonder why it is.
Of late, De Jong at right back has become a thing, another position for a footballer who still doesn’t have a defined one. But again, Flick started Farinas instead of De Jong, who came in for yet another delightfully effective cameo.
Alejandro Balde is another idea(l) player, supported with the same vehemence. But in his case it’s even more insidious, because of the supposition that the manager somehow hates him — a manager whose job it is to field the team best suited to achieve what he has been hired to do, which is win football matches.
Cancelo is a piece of work, a “Welcome” mat for opposition attackers, and it boggles the mind that he could possibly play over Balde, unless you watch them both play, not with the idea of “Let’s see why Flick is an idiot,” but just to look at the players, how they function and assess in the context of what the team needs. It’s easy to see why Flick starts Cancelo over Balde.
Supporters can let go of the idea of a player, provided there is a sufficiently short lifespan for that idea(l). Casado was quickly discarded after his injury cost him that step of pace that turned him from pit bull to cocker spaniel. Bernal is seeing that reconsideration as well, another player back from long-term injury to diminished effect. But both are Masia products who popped into view.
Some of the resistance to reality for players on the part of supporters is how much has been invested in the idea. De Jong came from Ajax in 2019, a big transfer under Bartomeu who was supposed to be the thing. A lot of people had a lot of emotion invested in his being the thing, so much that it becomes hard to resist, to say, “What if he is just another excellent footballer that Flick can call upon, quality depth that can play from midfield on back.” What is the complexity with embracing that condition, which is the one reality seems to be foisting upon us, and him?
If you watch a player in the context of other teams and players, you can see where they are good, and where they aren’t up to standard. It’s easy. If all you ever watch closely is your team, the vision becomes a bit more cloudy. We all watched De Jong play at RB against Atleti, and he did a great job. But you can also watch him play RB against Atleti and see exactly why he is never going to be an RB on the regular for Flick at Barcelona, or anywhere. And that’s okay, because he likely knows it as well. So does Flick.
Whenever De Jong subs on, he usually has a positive effect, because he is an excellent, versatile footballer. But there are lots of excellent, versatile footballers who lack that last little bit to set them into the cement of an XI. People who point that out don’t hate them. Love/hate is no way to rate footballers, but fandom makes people and their views complex, and within that complexity lives contentions that are felt, but don’t really exist.
“You just hate him.” No, you can see the things he does that keep him from being what people think he should be.
“You just love him.” No, but there are attributes alongside weaknesses that make him not the pariah people think he is.
To see players, you just have to watch players. And you have to watch players enough to be able to see players. As a journalist, I never liked anything because I never wanted my view to be obscured by fondness. How could I evaluate a band if I liked it enough to be a fan of it? How clear is my view? As a manager I never liked employees because what if you have to fire that person, or at evaluation time how might fondness affect your judgment?
I envy the passion of people who can see players like that, like these endearing humans that must be cared for, supported and defended against everything, even when the signs say otherwise. Passion is a wonderful thing to have, but does it need balance? For me, yes because that balance lets you see things that you need to see, and keeps you open to seeing those things. No love, no hate, just clarity.