Substituted players unleashed: latest TV tweak will push media training to the limit

7 hours ago 1

TAKING THE MIC

For Premier League footballers, the art of the post-match interview is simple enough, once you get the hang of it. All credit for a victory – the hallowed “three points” – must go to your teammates and “the gaffer”, even if you just scored a hat-trick to keep said gaffer in a job. Individual brilliance can be celebrated only in jokey, self-effacing terms. “I never hit them that well in training,” that sort of thing. Then it’s quickly on to “the next one”, all eyes on Bournemouth this Sunday. Shake hands, move on, and never, ever say anything remotely controversial.

That may be all about to change with the introduction of live TV interviews with substituted players – part of a range of broadcasting tweaks introduced as part of a new four-year TV deal worth £6.6bn. In exchange for that enormous wad of cash, Sky and TNT’s camera operators will be allowed to encroach on goal celebrations and peek into dressing rooms, while reporters wave their mics at hooked footballers on the touchline.

Reports claim a “cool-down” period will be observed, but without any official announcement yet, we can only wonder how this might play out. Would Mohamed Salah, for instance, have been able to iron out a new Liverpool deal if club suits knew what he was really thinking each time he got subbed off? After engaging in a frank exchange of views with the Emirates crowd back in 2019, what on earth would Granit Xhaka have had to say to the viewing public? And can we please bring back Mesut Özil and Carlos Tevez, kings of the substitution strop, in time for next season?

Back in 1992, Graham Taylor brought Gary Lineker’s England career to a close by hauling him off for Alan Smith in the 2-1 Euros defeat to Sweden. “He probably did me a favour by making me a martyr,” was Lineker’s view some 20 years on. “We were a pretty cr@ppy team.” One can only imagine what colourful language might have spilled on to TV screens had the interview taken place after 20 minutes instead – or how other bad reactors, from Cristiano Ronaldo to Wayne Rooney, might have been affected by Geoff Shreeves unapologetically getting up in their grills.

The truth is, of course, that the vast majority of professional footballers don’t like being substituted. Whether being asked to self-diagnose an injury or explain how they missed that open goal, players’ media training will be pushed to new limits. Is it fair on footballers already overstretched by fixture congestion, who know that one word out of turn will be splashed across all the Social Media Disgraces in seconds? No. But are we secretly excited about the potential “content” and its ability to fill a teatimely football newsletter? You’d have to ask the gaffer about that.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

It’s a pointless competition. Whoever wins it will be the worst winner of all time because they’ll have played all summer and then gone straight back into the league. There are people who have never been involved in the day-to-day business of football and are now coming up with ideas. It’s too many games. I fear next season we will see injuries like never before” – Jürgen Klopp goes in two-footed on the Copa Gianni.

Since LAFC’s fans are so keen to point out that the Galaxy are based in Carson, not LA, I feel I have to correct your reference to ‘Tinseltown’ (Friday’s Football Daily), which refers specifically to the Hollywood neighbourhood (despite most of the studios not actually being in Hollywood). LAFC are, of course, based in the Expo Park area of LA. And while we’re at it, English people, please stop pronouncing it as Los Angel-eez. You sound like jackasseez” – Tom Dowler.

Enzo Maresca’s outburst that ‘it’s not football’ in the wake of Chelsea’s near two-hour weather delay on Saturday in Charlotte brings up some very interesting points. Although he claims that the USA might not be the best place to hold a summer tournament (and he’s probably right), it might be more apt to say that it’s not football as it used to be played in the old world (meaning the world before ever-accelerating climate change and global warming, rather than Europe as seen in the eyes of Americans). This new reality of storm delays and unpredictable match lengths will add interesting new challenges for coaching staffs: How do you focus the minds of Internet-age players for an indefinite period of time, while they await a restart while cocooned in the bowels of a stadium? Should an assistant coach be ready to have the players start watching and analysing video of the game they are playing in as soon as they are rehydrated and fed appropriately? (Coaches who always look for the smallest advantage would surely demand this information download to players in the midst of a game?) Should cell phone contact with the outside world be banned while the players are in this forced lockdown? (Or is this counter-productive when players’ minds naturally dwell on the safety of watching friends and family inside the stadium?) Should the levels of air-conditioning in the American “locker room” be adjusted to avoid muscles cooling too rapidly before recommencement? (I’ve been in a few, and like most indoor spaces in the US in summer, they’re bloody freezing!) It would be intriguing to hear some of your writers’ and some coaching experts’ views on these new challenges, especially as they will apply to next year’s World Cup here in the USA” – Justin Kavanagh.

I want to be a football player, I know how to play ball” – Ella Sendra.

Please send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day competition is … ~~Ell~~ Justin Kavanagh, who gets some Football Weekly merch. We’ll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.