If you’re a regular or even a casual amateur footballer, you’ll probably have noticed something creeping into your Tuesday night games at your local Powerleague, your Sunday league matches, or even your kickabouts in the park.
It’s the latest way that people who take a five-a-side game between a collection of wobbly-bellied 40-somethings far too seriously, the logical extension of pristine full kits, overly-aggressive tackles or, god forbid, players with their own name on the back of their shirts.
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It’s the introduction of modern, serious football talk into theoretically unserious football. You’ll read examples of what we mean below but in short, it’s when people talk about a game on Hackney Marshes like it’s the Champions League final, and bark at you like they’re Jamie Carragher carefully analysing Arsenal’s defending on Monday Night Football.
Maybe this is an inevitable consequence of football’s popularity, of its ever-increasing coverage, of us knowing more about how the game works than we ever have done. Maybe you can blame Sky, maybe you can blame radio phone-ins, maybe you can blame — shock, horror — The Athletic.
People usually talk about the good old days in terms of ticket prices, accessibility and grounds in the middle of working-class towns rather than in a retail park next to a Frankie and Benny’s. But really, perhaps the good old days were when we just knew less, when football was just a weekly distraction, and when we could enjoy a fun runaround without someone yelling at you like they’re Pep Guardiola and you’re Kevin De Bruyne.
Read on, and if you have your own examples of this toe-curling phenomenon, tell us in the comments.
‘PRESS! COME ON — PRESS!’
I have to confess, dear reader, that my immediate reaction to being harangued by an occasional player at our weekly five-a-side game was not something you’d necessarily say in front of your mother.
“Fuck you,” I muttered under my breath, quietly enough for him not to hear. Because while I am consistently unimpressed with being ordered around during what is supposed to be an hour of Astroturf-based fun, I am also, crucially, a coward. What I really should have done is lock eyes with him and said: “Do I look like a water carrier to you?”
A fellow player was a little more dignified but no less pithy and emphatic in his response: “I’m 45! I am not pressing!”
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I am not yet 45 but I am also not Sadio Mane. I shall not be “pressing”. I shall be doing my best to ensure my wobbling physique makes it from 7-8pm each Monday without keeling over. I shall also not “KEEP THE SHAPE” as another (or it could’ve been the same) player urged a while back and I shall also not “STAY DISCIPLINED” as a chronically aggressive chap on the next pitch once bellowed.
I shall continue to realise that these evenings on a slightly shabby south London pitch are supposed to be fun and that treating them like a Champions League semi-final at the Nou Camp is not the way to keep things fun.
Nick Miller
‘It’s the system — it ain’t working’
The earnest attempts of footballers to make themselves feel like professionals really is the lifeblood of the amateur game.
Listen to any managerial team talk and it will be peppered with terms like “pressing”, “system” and “low block” when in reality, for the vast majority of teams, the approach will be to kick off and see what happens. I’m convinced that most manager’s team talks would have you back at neutral by the end when taking into account conflicting advice of “look, we don’t want to just hoof it” with “no stupid risks, especially not in our own half”.
On a more granular level, my first introduction to the trend of players wanting to live out their tactical dreams came in the mid-2000s when an opposition striker kept being flagged for offside at free kicks. He angrily explained that he was “doing a Van Nistelrooy” — attempting to ape the Dutch striker’s recently-developed tactic of standing well offside set pieces but retreating in time to be onside once they had been taken. The amateur striker in question though seemed to have forgotten the second part of this equation.
At around the same time, I heard a player complain that his poor performance was because of “the system”. “It’s the system,” he said. “It ain’t working.”
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Nowadays, this sort of talk has become much more sophisticated and developed to include discussions of things like expected goals (xG), counter-pressing and “being in a good moment”.
And the absolute nadir: jokes about VAR.
Charlie Eccleshare
‘Good D, lads’
Despite working in a role that admonishes players to work the ball into lucrative, high-value areas before shooting, all thoughts of xG go out of the window when there is the chance to blast a half-volley on goal during a five-a-side.
Our own Monday Night Football under the lights often elects to go with a strict Marcelo Bielsa man-marking system without any pre-match discussion, as the regular shout of “stay with your man” involves simply chasing your direct opponent into each corner of the 4G cage — at times with little regard for where the ball is.
While I’m glad to say that it has not been a regular occurrence, there have been some jarring moments where my team-mates have decided to use a phrase from American sport when the ball goes out of play.
“Good D, lads” has been heard on more than one occasion, to which the initial response is “I beg your pardon?”
Fortunately, this has not been widely accepted as a football term — leave that to basketball.
Mark Carey
‘Siuuu!’
The ways of the professional game seeping into the habits of amateur football isn’t exclusive to “grown-ups”.
In the Garforth Dual Under-7s League in Leeds, the Gary Goals of tomorrow are absorbing every action of their heroes.
The goal celebrations are the most fevered moment of any game — the ultimate release of a young player having their near-every whim catered to through their life so far.
As the designated striker for that quarter prods the ball home to make it 9-5, the parents will be stood behind the respect barrier, all amicably applauding the goalscorer.
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Unbeknownst to the crowd, a six-year-old will often interpret this as the final straw of a concerted media agenda over-analysing their every move — and so those onlookers shouldn’t be surprised to see said goalscorer running along the touchline with their fingers to their lips, silencing those that have reared them.
There will also be at least two “Siuuuus” per game, a couple of pile-ons, three knee-slides towards the corner flag, and four Patrick Bamford-inspired lightning bolts.
Little people doing big-person things because that’s just what you do when playing football — it’s genuinely heartwarming to watch.
Sam Brown
‘Beat the press!’
I blame FIFA. Actually, that’s not entirely fair. The video games might have encouraged our junior footballers to conjure those audacious attempts at rabonas, flip-flaps and scissor kicks, usually at the most inopportune moment in a game and almost always when a simple collection and pass would actually suffice.
However wall-to-wall television coverage of the Premier League and European competition is probably more culpable when it comes to the traits and habits adopted by youth players in local leagues every weekend.
Our under-13s team, a joyful blend of wannabe wingers and No 10s with the odd no-nonsense “put it into row Z even though we don’t play in front of stands” defender thrown in, have showcased it all. I once asked our regular corner-taker why he always, without fail, raises his arm before trotting up to deliver the dead ball and he could offer no plausible reasoning. “I thought it was just what you do.”
We have had players lying down in puddles behind defensive walls, despite the fact none of those in the line-up braving a block has any intention of jumping when the free-kick comes in. No one can explain “top bins” but they scream it whenever someone scores from distance, regardless of whether the ball finds the top corner or not.
We have seen players covering their mouths when talking to each other on the field or protesting that it was “second phase” at a befuddled referee — usually only a few years their senior — at the flap of an offside flag. Those reluctantly running the line are invariably parents, concentrating more on staying upright in trainers on a quagmire than whether the centre-back had deliberately played the ball when mustering a touch. They don’t stand a chance but it’s not as if the boys understand the intricacies of the modern offside rule, either.
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Throw in strikers screaming “near post” as they make a beeline to the nearest post, which is actually the far post, or the defender in our ranks who, amid a stream of in-game commentary, is prone to bellowing “beat the press” to his team-mates whenever collecting a goal kick tapped sideways to the edge of the box. It has become a force of habit. But retreat a few years and he used to do exactly the same back in the age groups where opponents were instructed to retreat to the halfway line before the goalkeeper restarted play.
Where was the press to beat, exactly?
The jargon is spot on. The context is gloriously warped.
Dom Fifield
Analysing “post-match stats”
This is not something that I ever say out loud but when I have finished playing a Sunday League game and am reflecting on my usually sub-standard performance, I often find myself picturing my game as an Opta tweet.
How many of my aerial duels did I win? Did any of my passes actually complete?
Did that little bit of dribbling on the half-way line count as a “take-on”?
David Cameron Walker
(Top images: Getty Images; design: Tom Slator)