Personally, I'm no longer a RM fan.  It's been a while coming.  I became a fan when Zidane joined and pretty much held on until now.  But I don't like Florentino Perez and his elitist Super League idea... and the RM fans make me cringe mostly.

So going back to being an OM fan.

I'll follow my favorite players and root for them to do well if they play for RM.  I used to watch Castilla and RM. But now, I'm not interested at all in either.  A bit sad frankly.  Never thought it would get to this point.  Completely turned me off emotionally.  

More interested in Ligue 1.  Besides OM, curious to see what Enrique does with all the kids they've bought (like him as a manager).  Will follow Nice and Monaco because they were local teams where I was growing up and they're very clever clubs.

Otherwise, I'll just follow football to see good games.  EPL games are generally a lot of fun to watch.  I also like La Liga and specifically Real Sociedad and Girona this season.  Watching some Bayern games too as Kane intrigues me. I also like Haaland a lot and I hope that Pep will let him shine more than he has until now. Arsenal of course. Liverpool here and there too.

Anyhow, long rant.   How about you peeps?

Tottenham under Ange have been the most fun I've had watching football for a while.

I think the biggest difference for me is that as I've gotten older I've realized that having such strong passion for a game is a misuse of emotional energy (at least for me). I watch football to enjoy it, and that means I want to watch positive, fun, free-flowing creative football, where teams open up and try to create a lot of chances and score. I stopped watching Tottenham under Mourinho and Conte because it was a drag. What is the use of watching the games if you watch shit on a stick football for two hours and lose?

Obviously, there is still something to be said for being a fan, but I'm not letting football ruin my day anymore.

Ultimately that does mean that the highs I experience are less high than they used to be, because I am less invested, but I'm ok with that. I'll trade that off to avoid the lows that I used to get. It's just a game after all.

The other thing is convenience. I'll watch whatever if it's on at a convenient time and easy for me to access. That means I'm mostly watching EPL these days. I do wish I could watch more La Liga, but I'd have to seek it out, and the timing isn't as ideal (usually in the middle of the day when I've got something going on during the weekend, as opposed to EPL which is in the morning).

sportsczy wrote:Personally, I'm no longer a RM fan

So Bill was right

word for word what CB said... my breaking point/spiritual awakening was the 8-2 loss to Man Utd in 2011, before that i was so super emotional and invested in Arsenal, but as soon as United scored the 5th goal in that match i turned the TV off, went outside and thought to myself 'why do i do this to myself'?

ever since then i turn the TV off if i feel like we don't play entertaining enough, or if we are going through a bad spell of results... it happened in Wenger's last two seasons, towards Emery's end, and i can feel it happening now again with our current form if things don't turn around soon

Sports you still watch a lot in comparison to me. I like how you said "Arsenal of course", a testament to our brand of football and club culture... rival fans may hate a lot and say we have a loser mentality, but a lot of fans from other leagues always say Arsenal are their favourite EPL team or they have a soft spot for us... other than Arsenal, i watch top clashes in the EPL and other interesting EPL games here and there providing i got the time and mood. I haven't even been watching as much CL since Arsenal were out of it, the last 6 years or so.

Ffs I wish Sports didn't admit that proving Real Madrid stalwart and Bill, correct. Delete that part, please.

And the statement calling RM fans obnoxious is an odd one. Yes they are the most entitled fans in the world but guess you haven't met fans of other big clubs.

Some of the worst out there:

Juve
Milan
Bayern
Arsenal
Sevilla
Barça
PSG omg..

This goes for any high profile club

No... PSG fans aren't that bad.   They're hybrid French fans.  They prefer for players to get promoted from the academy, buy young prospects AND then purchase a few stars to fill things out.  That's why Beraldo got such a big ovation.  Ethan Mbappe too.  Same with Zaire Emery.

What the fans there hate is high-priced entitled players who don't put the effort on the pitch.  Those guys will get booed mercilessly, including Messi.  There's no such thing as "I've done this in the past".  Either you earn their respect while playing for the club or you'll get treated like everyone else.

Anyhow...  OM fans are a bit too crazy for me to engage.  If they weren't my childhood team, I wouldn't bother.  But I watch almost all their games.

Generally speaking, entitled fans annoy me.  So it comes down to not engaging with fans and following teams that I like passively and then post some things here.  Reason I put the RM statement in there is that I no longer feel any special attachment to how the club does...  i prefer that they play well.  But it's not the end of the world whether they win or lose frankly.  I actually feel less emotion for RM now than when I watch a Ligue 1 game.

To each his own. To me Real Madrid has been one of the greatest things to have ever happen to me, top 5, full stop. The all consuming package of love and adulation I have for it is nigh spiritual and will always be there for me. Different people come with different vantage points, I take it you were never a huge fan of the club Sports, It was all something more casual and distant for you apparently, and I guess one could always tell. And it’s all well and good but I do find it somewhat striking as I couldn’t do that.

I will say the intensity I follow the team and sport with obviously varies, the most distant I’ve ever felt was in 2021 with the thought of Real Madrid abandoning its heritage with the super league, I do hope it doesn’t happen for the sake of the history of the champions league. Even then my gripe was with Perez, not RM.

The fan thing is another discussion and in a big way I don’t buy it. You are judging Real Madrid from the viewing glass of your own perspectives and biases, a distance has always been perceived in your posts I think.

I think it’s possible to still be rational and relatively fair from inside the chest cavities of RM, which is where my vantage point comes from, not a viewing glass from far away.

Rosebud.

It's a stark assumption to say he never was a big fan given I remember his fandom and how annoyingly fanatic it could even be in 2012 ish somewhere around then.

Fact really is when you evolve as a person, supporting a team, to which has no reflection on the success or failure of your life, can vary based on the scope your life has itself. As you grow older that scope grows therefore supporting something that you are expendable to and have no control over its success just seems smaller.

My passion remains but is not that burning passion that could have a cause & effect on my day simply because my scope has grown therefore sports ball seems a bit less relevant than before.

I have never met anyone on a true mission and absolutely tearing through life having that kind of passion for any team and there's a lesson in there somewhere.

This opinion won't be met well by some and Im ready to take that on.

I was reading Mbappé's transfer thread and my conclusion is that i could not give a fuck less about where he goes

5-10 years ago i'd have been passionate about it. The difference of class between this generation and the previous one is too big for me not being bitter and cynical about the current state of football. Probably getting older has an effect but i still think the guys who were in their late 20s in 2010 had it better than we do now.

I care only for Juve, Serie A and i guess i'll care about the knock out stage of CL

All kinds of situations can happen with fandom, all relative to any number of things.

I would say that there is a type of crystalline affection that can exist that is not even dependent on how much one follows things on the day by day. Kinda like loving a parent or a very close family member. It's love.

Thinking back, maybe the 18/19 season as a whole was my most distant, I was particularly busy and the season was particularly grim and tasteless, and we had also just completed a dynasty and we were evidently in a stale moment of transition and "fin de ciclo" as they say in Spanish, but without a doubt that ember of "love" was just as true at any given moment in that season where for big stretches I wasn't even following the team as when throwing the green plastic chair I was sitting up into the ceiling when Ramos scored his header in the 2014 CL final or as when I was cursing the cosmos on that rainy drive back home during a high school week day, listening to the static filled AM radio ESPN live report of Madrid losing the CL semi final against Bayern Munich.

The stalest, greatest, and most tragic of moments were all the same.

Respect to however anyone else feels. To each their own.

And going back to the title's question in general, remarkably my appreciation for the sport has changed very little throughout time. Have always loved the sport since starting to watch in 2010 but Real Madrid has always come first and I rarely watch other matches outside of big matches. The magic and intensity of being a kid and starting to watch the sport and the team amidst the Madrid vs Barca 2010-2012 years though, the mythos of that experience was something else. New generations don't know what they missed out on.

@Arqi...  the big issue is that football has become formulaic.  It's the same teams who get the best players and end up competing in the end.  PSG and City are a bit more interesting because they're new to the stage but use the same formula.

The Bosman ruling, and the lack of a wage cap afterward, skewed the game too much towards clubs with a lot of money.  Before that, there was a lot more parity.  Over the decades, it's become boring.  

In the 90s, you had 9 different CL winners, with only 1 that had also won in the 80s (Juventus)
In the 00s, you had 7, only 2 of which won in 90s
in the 10s, you had 6, 5 of which also won in 00s

It's more and more becoming the same clubs winning over and over again.

Super League would make it even worse.

So to me, the teams have become less interesting than the players.

sportsczy wrote:Personally, I'm no longer a RM fan.  It's been a while coming.  

No idea how you could be a RMad fan at all to begin with

I disagree...  the stats are interesting.  I left EPL out because they're just booming.  Attendance:

France -
(1995) 13,156 & (2023) 23,803

Spain -
(1995) 30,532 & (2023) 29,448

Italy -
(1995) 29,154 & (2023) 29,551

Germany -
(1995) 30,004 & (2023) 42,997

Netherlands -
(1995) 10,227 & (2023) 18,394

Total Averages of these leagues:-

(1995) 22,615 & (2023) 28,839

So really, the only two leagues that are having issues are La Liga and Serie A.  Not surprisingly, the two leagues are desperate for a Super League.  EPL and all the other countries have literally no reason to change anything.

Good luck with selling that!

I'll give even more Ligue 1 stats.  Here are the highest attended seasons in history:
2022-2023: 9,047,612
2018-2019: 8,676,419
2017-2018: 8,558,928
2014-2015: 8,453,000
2006-2007: 8,290,346

The pandemic years broke the streak or the last 5 years wouldn't have been the highest attended.  Also, this season, Ligue 1 attendance is up over 11% from the last... for those who think Messi/Neymar drove attendance.  The projected attendance is going to be just about 10 million or slightly over for this season.

And screw the elitist "we all want to see the best against the best" with the premise that only 8 clubs are allowed to be the best.  Every club is allowed to strive to be the best.  Not so long ago, Leverkusen, Everton, Nottingham Forrest, Newcastle, Stuttgart, OM, etc. were among the best.  You had Porto, Ajax, Dortmund, Belgrade, etc all win the CL.

So take that high-brow nonsense and shove it where the sun doesn't shine, along the the presumption that "you're in the minority". I'm not if you watch the fan reaction and the street protests in places like Man U and Liverpool... and these are clubs that would be the lucky few too. Their fans realize how senseless it is.

Dont like where football is currently headed.

The last wc proved VAR is dead in the water. Argentina wouldn't have won their wc had it not been for favorable ref calls. VAR needs a serious review. Because at the end of the day it is still left by human hands and humans are extremely fallible.

Financian fair play was never about fairness and is also dead in the water. State owned clubs are on the rise. There is a serious need of regulations on clubs, players, and agents to curb outrageous wages, transfer fees, agent fees. It is not lost on me that Real Madrid has played a huge role inflating market prices.

Don't get me started on the retardation that is the Super league. Short sighted and it strengthen our rivals. Why the hell should real madrid strengthen farsa or any other team?

Wage limit, transfer fee limits, regulations for release clauses. Even a success tax. The works. Football needs to be competitive. It can't be just Real madrid or "insert your fav club here" to dominate their league. Fans need believe their local team actually has a shot aganst goliath.

CL does need a revamp but not the way you think it. While allowing top leagues to get guaranteed  spots is great for marketing,  competitively not so much. Cl should only be guaranteed group stages by actual champions. Like for example winner of the D onkey league and winner of the FA cup. Everyone else needs to qualify through playoffs if you still want your 4-5 teams from england.

And clubs really need to be fan owned and fan operated. None of this "backed by a nations gdp". Bubdesliga's 50%+1  should be the norm.

But i understand money talks. Its the way of the world after all.

I doubt anyone would bat for the success tax btw. Its probably the only way to help smaller clubs compete against the elite clubs. Win the league? Np. Win it consecutively? tax kicks in. Tax gets shared with rest the league except for the ones who are getting relegated. The lower position on the table, the bigger the cut you get from the tax. Main point? Ensuring your league be competitive. You combine this with wage and fee limits. And you will see the league get a bit more competitive.

Long ive thought how to make league more competitive.

I believe in a free market.  That means it does not allow for a monopoly with an artificial barrier to entry, which is what the Super League wants to be.  That's illegal in the US unless every team and the cities approve it... and even then.  It requires that the players involved approve it too.  That's how it works in the US.  That's how the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB got their leagues exist.  EVEN THEN, they must go in front of US Congress every single year to make their case as the legality is reviewed on an annual basis.  UEFA is a monopoly that only exists because all the member federations vote to allow it to be.  They could vote it down now if they wanted.  My only issue is that there is no player representation there.

That is NOT what is being proposed in the Super League.

The Super League hurts the domestic leagues because the revenue is not based on meritocracy alone.  The founding members get billions and are guaranteed billions in the future simply for being "historic teams".  Get the hell out of here.  Right now, any domestic league team can make CL and gets the revenue based on achievement that year.  Nothing else.

Third, it's a logical fallacy to equate revenue with a sport's popularity.  The numbers I showed above prove it.  Football has continued to grow in popularity in every country shown above other than Spain and Italy.  Just because clubs in Italy and Spain have reached a popularity plateau allowing other countries to catch up... is their own problem.  They want more money to get more star players so that they can then regain their competitive advantage.  That's all it is.  I haven't heard ONE SINGLE fan in France ask or talk positively about the Super League.

Anything else?

I have a similar position for Valencia being that I no longer support them the way I used to when I first joined here. Ever sincevLim has brought Valencia's prestige down it hasnt been the same. Same with Monaco who I did like when Falcao arrived in particular and were fun to watch and tbh they still are but I now have a bit more affinity for Marseille. Their fanbase is passionate and I can see why they love their team there. Roma was my pick for Serie A and when Mou went there it was like a dream come true. I thought that move wouldve brought them back into the scene and he did for a moment. Even tho Mou has gone Im likely still gonna watch Roma regardless. Their affliation to Ancient Rome has solidified my stance there. Arsenal in PL still remain my favorite side to watch inspite of their bottling. Only things that never really changed are America of Mex and whenever Copa Libertadores is on I try for River Plate. LAFC are my top team and probs will always be now since they are the ones I have the most access to. Literally work nearby their stadium and my home is only 20-25 minutes away from them. Ill never go back to the feeling of watching Champions League in the 2010s very likely but Ill still watch the sport probs till the end of my life. Thats my 2 cents here.