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25 Steps To Becoming A Football Hipster

nobler

By nobler
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nobler Newbie

nobler

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:lol: I'm guilty of a fair few.

 

1. Get a zany football shirt. Not a St Pauli one as they’ve become too mainstream. This year the shirt to have is Real Oviedo’s (preferably Abel Xavier era one). It will show you’re in the know and care about the little guy and that you follow Sid Lowe.

 

2. Do not under any circumstances miss the Guardian’s Football Weekly with James Richardson. From now on; you worship James Richardson. If anyone asks why, get misty eyed, stare into the distance and recall him “years back” on Channel Four holding up La Gazzetta dello Sport. Say it’s one of the enduring images of your childhood.

3. Tell people you were into the Zonal Marking back when it was Mantoman.com.

4. Buy Inverting The Pyramid. Read it cover to cover. Take shorthand notes to remember important terms like catenaccio, regista, triquartista and manager.

5. Inform everyone around you that Spain are playing with a false nine and yet, in your opinion, also a true ten. Allow yourself a smirk.

6. Set up a twitter account with a clever obscure football handle. For example: @JavierClementefirstsaidtikitaka

7. Consistently pour scorn on the Premier League. Say it’s the Hawaii Five-O to the Bundisliga’s The Wire. Say it has utterly lost the art of defending and that the perfect game ends 0-0.

8. Your favourite Barcelona player is no longer Messi. It's Busquets. Claim Michael Carrick is Manchester United’s most important player and that Andrea Pirlo should have won the Ballon D’or.

9. Hype up South American derbies like they are the biggest games in the world. Tell the world you cannot believe people are looking forward to Super Sunday on Sky when it’s only six hours until River and Boca play.

10. Despise all football pundits except for Gary Neville and Pat Nevin.

11. Say Revista de La Liga has lost something since they sacked Mark Bolton.

12. Actively root for AVB and always, always refer to him as AVB.

13. At all times defend Zlatan Ibrahimovic. This is only tricky when talking about his time at Barcelona as he comes into direct conflict with fellow hipster God Pep Guardiola. In this instance, defend Zlatan’s record, cite his scoring and assist record but also cite that perhaps he was too much of an individual in the ultimate collective and that Pep needed to free Messi.

14. Adore everything about Borussia Dortmund. Visit the Westfalenstadion. Rename you cat Klopp.

15. Set up a blog. Write 4000 word pieces on how Falcao scores and stuff. Tweet every football journalist on twitter and ask for a RT.

16. Engage in a twitter argument with Ken Early over the six-second rule.

17. Live tweet The Sunday Supplement pointing out why it's silly with every sentence.

18. Assert that this Barcelona team is decent but nowhere near as good as Sacchi's Milan.

19. Only discuss Newcastle United en francais.

20. Play FIFA 13 using the Brendan Rodgers possession game.

21 Pay a fortune for a Norwegian satellite feed to follow the progress of Molde.

22. Set up an African Cup of Nations twitter list for the duration of the tournament.

23. Wake up every morning and remember the great Yugoslav team that never was.

24. Only ever pronounce team names in the language of the country they're from so it's Reeeber y Boca in the Bombanerrrrrrro, Pareee-san-jyrmah and Ireland's Euro 88 game was in Ghel-sin-kirssshhhhhhh-en.

25. State with confidence that Off The Balls's football show was better with 'Parker & Lovejoyyyyyyyy" on Friday nights.

 

25 Steps to becoming a football hipster

Edited by nobler
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Troglodyte Proficient

Troglodyte

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I'm guilty of 2 and 14.

 

Partly guilty of:

1 (I have a few random shirts)

4 (I've bought 'Inverting the Pyramid' but haven't yet read it all)

8 (in that I told a friend not long ago that Busquets is quickly becoming my current favourite Barça player)

10 (I despise most football pundits, with good reason, but also I'm not sure about Pat Nevin, although he's certainly better than most)

12 (insofar as I like Villas-Boas, but don't worship him)

24 (I try to say player and team names as they should be pronounced, but without the whole I'm-so-up-myself-over-expression with accents, where possible!)

 

Regarding Spain (surely the international side of choice for the football hipster, although this is changing as they too are very 'mainstream' now!) - when everyone was wondering who they'd start up front before Euro 2012 with David Villa being out injured, I called the starting line-up in their first game against Italy and said that Cesc would play as a false 9.  Following the match, I several (admittedly British) pundits and journalists suggested that 'nobody' could have predicted that Spain would line up in a '4-6-0' formation, before the debate moved into whether this style was 'boring' - at which point I was saying that it's only boring because teams park the bus, and was proven correct in the final.

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ArteSuave Newbie

ArteSuave

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I remember James Richarson being quite good on channel 4 but I've never bought the Guardian, my U-11 team used zonal marking, I like it when AVB wins but I'd never call him AVB out loud and I obviously despise football pundits and the Sunday Supplement dregs.

 

On the other hand I enjoy the PL, like Messi more than Busquets, despair when people tell me Carrick's organisational and anticipation skills and reasonable passing make him some kind of single handed title winner and I'll never defend Zlatan's bullshit, I just enjoy it.

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Troglodyte Proficient

Troglodyte

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I love both of them.  With Barça, it started with an appreciation.  When I was younger, I had a similar appreciation of the Real Madrid team that included Raúl, Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane, Roberto Carlos, etc.  They were brilliant to watch.

 

However, with Barça, I started watching them more and more, because it was so bloody entertaining, and became seduced by their ethos, style and attitude.  I've been over to the Camp Nou for a visit but unfortunately the timing wasn't right to catch a game, but I hope to change that this year.  I'd like to say that I'm a fan, and will still be in the future when things may not be so good.  After all, not everything can last forever, and football is evolving all the time - Barcelona are just the pinnacle of the current phase.  But I'll still fondly remember this side, and because of it I will always support Barcelona.

 

With Dortmund it was different.  I wanted to start following German football (see the start of the Bundesliga thread on here!) and was trying to choose a team.  I wanted someone similar to Villa, but also a club I felt I could somehow connect with.  I didn't want to follow Bayern.  I plumped for Dortmund, as I loved the look of their stadium, and thought that their history was fairly similar to Villa's.  I liked the attitude of the club and the management.  It just happened that in that season, they won the league, and it was **** awesome!  Although the signs were there that this was a promising team, nobody expected them to win the title at the start of the season, and I certainly didn't.  But choosing to follow them that year, and for that to then actually happen, was brilliant.

 

It might still seem like I'm a bit of a 'glory supporter' in this respect, but I'd argue otherwise.  At the end of the day, Dortmund will be my German team, and Barça will be my Spanish team, come what may in the future.  Barça I started to follow because they were so good, and as I followed them more they began to get better and better; but Dortmund I followed because they appealed to me, and shortly afterwards they developed and clicked into the fantastic team that they are now.

 

Still, Villa will always be my main club.  But getting to watch Barça give someone a beautiful pasting, after witnessing another inept performance by Villa, helps a little to balance out the all-too-common miserable weekends when we lose!

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Zatman Grand Master

Zatman

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slightly off topic but to do with Barcelona point. I get no enjoyment watching a team pasting teams who have less money than them every week. A thumping is good to watch once in a while but not every week

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Troglodyte Proficient

Troglodyte

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I don't revel in the fact that the opposition are often embarrassed (or at least put huge amounts of energy and commitment into a game out of which they usually get nothing).

 

However, I do love Barça's play.  It's mesmerising.  They win with humility, too - I wouldn't enjoy it anywhere near as much if they didn't.

 

And although the opposition are often comprised of players who get paid far less money, La Liga is a million miles away from being the sub-standard league that many people over here claim it is.  People assume that's the case because it's usually a two-horse race, and the top two get an arguably unfair slice of the TV money, but the opposition that Barça and Real face domestically are generally decent sides.

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