THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND CREATING TRUE FOOTBALL ANALYSTS

TRUE FOOTBALL ANALYSTS IS UNIQUE

If you have the patience to read this article, you will understand why I talk the way I talk about football. You will also understand why my posts may sometimes get you upset. But most of all, you will realize that I don’t mean to offend you with some of the things that I post about.

My ideals are very different from those of every other football lover I have ever met, and because I have no interest in changing my ideals for anyone, I decided that I needed to have a very unique forum to discuss football with the kind of people that were at least NOT EASILY OFFENDED by my thinking-pattern. 

Because that “thinking-pattern” did not just appear in my head by magic. It was developed by years of INPUTS and OUTPUTS. And other people contributed greatly to it.

So please read carefully as I explain:-

A LONG JOURNEY 

Many years ago, I was a football fanatic. At age 16 sometime in the very early 90s, there were no satellite dishes in my country. I used to watch football when my uncle brought video cassettes of Maradona to our house.

Then came BOP TV (Boputhatswana – a South African cable channel) came to Nigeria, we didn’t immediately get cable in my family, so I used to walk from one part of Unilag campus where I lived to the other end of it, just so that I can watch the Italian Serie A.

Almost all my friends thought I was going nuts because I would occasionally pass on the opportunity to attend a very high profile party with my friends, just so I can walk a long distance to go and watch Torino vs Brescia. ALONE! 

Yeah, I was crazy.

But to me, that meant Martin Vasquez vs Gheorge Hagi; two great footballers that do great things almost every time they touch the ball, so I did it with all of my heart.

And when I would arrive at my friend’s house about 15minutes before kick-off, he and his sisters would already be expecting me. In fact, on some occasions, his youngest sister would have to beg their parents (on my behalf) that SHE wanted to watch Italian football, if their parents were watching CNN at the time I arrived. My friend and his sisters enjoyed watching the way I would run my own side commentary on the matches, and they loved the sound of Italian names and the way I seemed to know every single player's name and surname in the Calcio.

THE RISE OF THE IMPERIAL PREMIER LEAGUE

Now, fast forward to about 1996, and a few other young Nigerians have now gradually started becoming passionate football fans as well.

By now though, they are showing more English Football in Nigeria than any other (thanks to DSTV from South Africa – which has Language, Economic & Political ties the UK).

And also the English League had started purchasing  some old Italian footballers (Vialli, Zola, Casiraghi, Ravanelli, DiMatteo, etc) and some French stars (Robert Pirez, Franck Leboef, Fabian Barthez) among other foreigners.

But suddenly I noticed that the English commentators were making claims like “Eric Cantona deserves to be a starter for France” (ahead of ZIDANE?!?!?) or stuff like “DiMatteo may be better than Albertini for Italy”. And I will be like, ‘Do you ever even see  Albertini play at all’?!!!

And eventhough I wasn’t really getting angry then, I still thought they must have been smoking their studio's disposed Fuji film negatives.

Now fast forward again to 2004, and I now realized beyond a doubt that those English commentators have now become fully on a mission to preach their “English League is superior” message. And because most of us in Nigeria cannot understand French, Spanish or Italian, we cannot hear anyone arguing for the other side. Except those of us who actually watch football with our EYES and not our EARS.

But I still wasn't getting angry yet. Afterall, anyone has a right to market his own product. And if you are lucky, you might even find an audience that will even help you to FIGHT for your product.

My point of difference however, was that I personally chose to pay more attention to the football I was watching with my own eyes, than the commentary I was hearing. So I didn't or couldn't buy the whole "most exciting league" story for one minute.

Yet it was also in this era that I started drifting slightly away from Serie A and slightly closer to LaLiga.

Too many people were politicizing things back then, even Fabio Capello had once been quoted as saying, “In the Spanish LaLiga, they attack like aristocrats, but defend like peasants”. And I used to laugh at Spanish players for this. But I couldn't deny that I had loved their National team almost as much as I loved my Azzuris, Albicelestes, then those Samba boys of Brazil. And as for LaLiga, they naturally played great football, and they attracted some of the most talented stars in the history of the game.

So I also realized that Capello must have said that because Real Madrid’s Board had given him a lot of heat for playing a Counter Attacking style (whenever he met Barca & sometimes Atletico Madrid) instead of our preferred Dribbling, Possessive, Attacking flair.

THINK FOOTBALL, SPEAK FOOTBALL, BUT DO IT OUR WAY! 

So I came to an understanding what that old Coca-Cola advert captured….it said, “eat football, sleep football, dream football, drink coca cola”.

My realization was that there was a conscious effort to indoctrinatethe newer football fans through the media, into not only believing their claims, but also to help them spread the message. So I started meeting Nigerian fans who were aggressively TELLING me that I am wasting my time with Serie A and LaLiga, that I should be watching the Premier League.

But don’t get me wrong, this is STILL not the reason why I decided to creat TFA.

In the year I set up TFA, I had visited Goal.com for the first time because someone shared an article from it to his profile on Facebook. The article was about Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid. And after reading it I felt like vomiting.

This must have been around Round-7 or so into the 2010/2011 season and Real Madrid was leading on points and goal difference. Barca had already lost a home game against Hercules then. So the article said that Real Madrid been transformed by Mourinho, and they were now playing with "swagger". Please, did you even watch any of Madrid's games in the previous season? What the hell does swagger mean?

At that time I wasn’t interested in commenting on the post. I was only thinking ‘when will these clowns stop all the ignorant chatter?’ And why can't they just stick to bragging about what is theirs? I mean, this wasn't a Chelsea Magazine bragging about their former employee. This were sports journalist that were supposed to be disseminating information about football. But instead of that, they were trying to pitch a miserable idea that Mourinho was coming from the EPL to save Madrid from the dungeon that Barcelona had kept them.

Even those of us who are true Madrid supporters know that we need to wait until it's at least 4 points gap before we start getting cocky or celebrating. Now these hangers-on from the EPL are trying to get us jinxed. (Hangers-on despite that Mourinho has no trace of British-blood in him and he spent only 3 years in England for crying out loud. They may have a little more RIGHT to claim Arsene Wenger, eventhough I can still remember when he was manager at Nantes, or was it PSG? OK I can't remember the particular club. lol) 

Anyway to cut the long story short, about 5 or 6 Rounds later, Barca hammered Mourinho (NOT MADRID) 5-0, so I immediately went over to goal.com to see what they had to say about that one.

...“oh! Mourinho needs time to get his team together. This is only his first season. Barca are playing their best football ever. Blah blah blah”. Yeah right! So how did Hercules beat them 2-0 at Camp Nou? And why did all of this details slip your mind earlier. Dumbo!

Anyway, fast forward to our 2-0 defeat at Benabeu to the same Barca at the Champions League. And the Goal.com posts became too much for me to ignore, so I decided to join and start commenting:

I never used a F-bomb or any other curse word, nor did I insult anyone. I only pointed out why Jose Mourinho was NOT the messiah they were making him out to be. And I corrected the authors about referee bias, when he was claiming that Barca players were diving and acting. My simple take was that you cannot keep attacking footballers with taekwon-do kicks and clothes-lines and expect them to join you in a contest of mixed-martial arts. They prefered to play football instead of fight with us. And of course, if they see a mad man charging towards them to inflict pain, even I will encourage them to use whatever tactic to avoid getting injured and losing the ball. Thank you Coach Gus D'Amato!

Meanwhile my comments would immediately generate lots of likes as well as dislikes. (I guess the likes were from Barca fans anyway) So I started getting some positive and negative responses from the other members. 

But after a while, I noticed that my comments were either being removed, or not even allowed to pass through moderation. So I decided to do an experiment:

I would post a comment that criticizes a Spanish LaLiga player that has NOT played in the EPL (like Pepe, or Marcelo), and just like I expected, they did not delete those comments. The ones that were deleted were the ones that had something AGAINST Mourinho, Cristiano Ronaldo or Fabregas. 

And Oh yes! They also DELETED my long comment where I praised and analyzed Pep Guardiola's rise to success (how he completely revamped the star-studded side he inherited from Rijkaard, and turned it into a youthful, Spanish dominated, cohesive engine). Unlike them, I believe that a good football report should be TRUTHFUL. But if you hate the other team so much, and you don't want to tell the truth, then it is better for you NOT to write a report in the first place. Simple!

So I realized that mingling too long with the clowns on that forum would eventually turn me into a confused person, so I decided to create a forum for people who love football for the purity of football itself; People who are not interested in promoting any particular agenda......OR people who are interested in promoting the LATIN football agenda.

YES! Now you know! It was created to target a niche.

But I am not saying that lovers of the EPL are not welcome to post, or that your posts about Man Utd would be deleted. I would never do that. 

Because I am a man!!! I'm not a goal.com moderator! I'm a man!

I am not AFRAID of anything an EPL fan has to say....

It is never anything more than the "2-Horse" race argument anyway.

But in all honesty, TFA is not about arguing about Leagues. It is about a man who is lending a voice to Latin football in the midst of Anglo-imperialistic mind-control. I noticed they don't have much beef with the Bundesliga, and I can understand why they chose not to. 

Still, all I am saying is that my primary motive for this Group is to give English speaking LaLiga & Serie A fans a place where they would feel more at home. Because I know that they have been brutally bastardized by Skysports (and other English) commentators for many years. And because Skysports has the Disney company of America as a major stake-holder, it has become a media giant that has an unfair advantage over the likes of Rai Italia, and whoever the primary distributor of LaLiga is.

 

YET EPL FANS REMAIN WELCOME

So I invited a Barca fan, a Bayern fan, an Atletico Madrid fan, and even a Man Utd fan to be moderators on the forum. My plan was to get an AC Milan fan later on. But that hasn't really worked out.

But at some point, people started to complain that there is too much talk about LaLiga, and that I should change the name to LaLiga Football Analysts. And my response was that instead of complaining they should post stuff about their own Premiership clubs and generate interest by themselves, because I for one, am very thankful that this forum is different from all the other forums out there where everyone is going on and on about Chelsea and Man Utd.

Because, if you are observant you would notice that a lot of Premiership fans are still here. And they post stuff about Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea. Even I myself, sometimes do a small thing about a Premiership game where I managed to see the highlights sometimes.

Unfortunately Facebook Groups are not like Google+ communities where you can create specific segments for your topics (like different segments for LaLiga, Premiership, Bundesliga). That would have been the best, so that some of you will just restrict yourselves to the area where your preferred league is being discussed.

But the point is, up till today, I still DON'T enjoy watching Premiership matches, except some Man City games and maybe the occasional Arsenal/Swansea highlights I might catch sometimes. In fact, there are some LaLiga games I can't watch as well. Sevilla sometimes plays some annoying football these days. But generally speaking, I can’t stand football where defenders think they must boot every ball out of their defense, and where wingers 85% of the time try to RUN PAST every marker that challenges them at the byline. 

But that’s just me. I love red wine. Not fond of white wine much. Can’t stand rose anymore. Its how it is. So it is important that everyone understands that my posts will reflect this preferences. And you ABSOLUTELY HAVE THE RIGHT to disagree with me. But try to keep that disagreement civil. You don't have to chop off my head for not liking what you like.

The difference here is that while they would delete many of my posts on Goal.com every time I challenged their theories with hard facts; on this forum I would allow anything you post to speak for itself and prove itself. But I would not allow anyone to begin to insult anyone else, just because he feels he is losing an argument. That's the only part that gets to me.

THE NUMBER GAMES

Now a friend of mine has challenged me saying that the Group wouldn’t grow if I did it this way because everybody is an EPL fan. But for me, I will rather have conversations with 18 people who love football, than 2,000,000 people that chorus the same thing they heard from the jokers on ESPN Soccrenet.

But thanks to my SEO knowledge in Digital Marketing, I have been fortunate to understand that relevance on the internet depends on many things other than numbers. So having 10,000 members is not my goal for TFA. It is more about creating as pure digital product. Unique; Consistent; REAL. 

If things go well, each individual member of TFA could become a globally recognized football pundit in the future. But that would depend on how active you are sharing your analyses on the forum as well as in your own blogs. It may also depend on whether you use Google+ actively. :-)....

(If you would like to know more about how I came about this, inbox me)

FINALLY

If my stance bothers anybody, I am really sorry about it. But that person should realize that I have felt even more oppressed by the unprofessional, biased and uninformed English commentary that I have been hearing for decades. And Facebook and Google+ have now given me my opportunity to take a tiny mite back. The future of Google+ is quite bright indeed for people like me (who have a small voice compared to the British Media Empire) and I intend to take full advantage of it, starting from here. Again I apologize. :-)

I have been treated much more roughly by Goal.com, The Goal Group on Facebook, and ESPNsoccernet.com. I am out-numbered every day in my country: They provoke me into arguments anytime they see me watching a LaLiga game. They won't let me watch it in peace. It's always the same sh** over and over again, as if by constantly telling me, that that will suddenly transform me into a Chelsea fan.

So for the last time, please learn to forgive my over-inclination towards latin football. Know that there is a deep history behind it, and realize that you are free to promote whatever football or football league that you like on TFA, and I will not stop you. But if an argument should ever break out, please try to keep your emotions in check, and try not to kill yourself for a football league or club. I do not believe in being anything....for Life! 

So I will never really understand anyone that attacks me or any other memeber for the sake of a football club or player.

This is True Football Analysts. 

Not Football Idol Worshippers.

Thanks for understanding.