The best way to ruin a movie is to watch it with someone who works in film production. I lived for a year with a flatmate who studied film at university and worked as a producer. We couldn’t simply sit down and enjoy a movie. It had to be dissected, studied. As a result, we watched a number of challenging films that intentionally made the audience work. They were not fun, and that was the point. We had somehow managed to take something we loved and turn it into a slog.
Does anyone enjoy football less than diehard fans? Football supporters are the most miserable souls of all humanity. Just looking at my own tribe of Chelsea fans – what an absolute ball-ache of a season. While one half of the fanbase whined about style and registas, the other half made it worse by worshipping possession and patterns of play. Despite a third place finish behind two of the greatest teams of the Premier League era and a European trophy, no one seemed happy. I can already hear the objections coming from my fellow Blues. “We only made it because everyone else was even worse, it was just the Europa League, Sarri never got enough backing, the matches were so boring, etc…” See? We are not allowed to simply enjoy this silly game.
It is not just the common fans. As we dive deeper into tactics and analytics, our enjoyment does not grow proportionally with our understanding of the game. I know, for example, Derby County’s passes allowed per defensive action under Frank Lampard was the second lowest in the Championship at 8.2, and I can expect wild, chaotic matches at Stamford Bridge next season. I’ll miss much of the excitement, though, as I look for pressing triggers and compare the radars of Matteo Kovacic and Ross Barkley. There is nothing wrong with watching a match with an analytical or tactical eye. I just know I have a tendency to turn “play” into “work.” So, when I feel that I have started to suck all the fun out of this sport I love, I know it’s time for the football equivalent of relaxing poolside on vacation with a trashy novel: Serie A.
I started out watching the Italian top flight as low commitment entertainment. However, I soon became enmeshed in the storylines and emotionally invested in seeing the resolution at the end of the season. And, like most lowbrow entertainment, you already know how it will end: Juventus winning the scudetto before May. The league is essentially pulp fiction. It ain’t Shakespeare, but that’s the point. The nice thing about gaudy low art is that it often doesn’t pretend to be anything more than entertainment.