Personality in sport

Two things over the past week have made me re-evaluate the role athletes have in sport (again). First was the death of Maradona, and second was this Cavani "racism" situation. As a disclaimer, this is solely my opinion as a black American who got into football/soccer full time around 2008.

My disclaimer at the beginning is important because it gives me a certain perspective into these two situations. Also, my background of learning the Spanish language from age 13-21 or so gives me a bit of insight into that culture that most anglophiles simply won't have. Thus, I'll start with a cross sport comparison. It's a flawed comparison, but the time periods correspond relatively well. Michael Jordan is the Maradona of the NBA. I've also vaguely made the Kobe/LeBron and Cristiano/Messi comparison, although the timelines are slightly off, as I already said.

These guys are all part of the GOAT conversation, but they all brought something else to the game. One overlooked part of sport, and I think this has gotten worse (customers rather than fans) with social media, is that personality has gradually been drained from athletes. It's what I never quite comprehended until the death of Maradona last week. Even comparing Maradona to Jordan, from a "hero" perspective, is maybe doing the Argentine a disservice. I saw Jordan play live, but those were the Wizards days, as his prime had long gone. I bring this up because it honestly feels like there's always been a lack of personality in American sport. Like, you think of OJ Simpson, Dion Sanders, Dennis Rodman, Bo Jackson, and I'd imagine there are others, but by and large it's always kinda been about what happens on the field/court. There's that "shut up and dribble" quote which is what athletes do nowadays. I'll get to this later with the Cavani thing, but personality doesn't exist, even to the extent Jordan or Kobe had it. I mean, look at LeBron. He, along with Cristiano and Messi, are only relevant with what they do in the arena. We see what they say in interviews, which is the typical athlete jargon, nothing insightful, and whatever crap they post for their sponsors. You'll occasionally see the family pic, but it's not actual personality. An example of one who kinda has personality is Alphonso Davies. He's probably even a generation after me, considering he just turned 20, but he's on TikTok or whatever all the time doing those cringe dances. What I'm saying here is his generation of athletes are more boring than the one before, and that's sad. That was a tangent, but getting back to Maradona, half the point of his mythical reputation is that he partied and said what he thought. Due to people losing any sense of individual identity, that simply doesn't happen anymore. The most you'll see from say LeBron, is the usual pandering to whatever cause is trending at a given time, while conveniently ignoring things like what's going on in China or most of Africa. Getting back to Jordan, unless I'm missing something, he wasn't even a hero like that. He's known for being good at basketball and having a trendy, expensive sneaker brand. Outside of that, is he a hero?

I rambled a bit there, but the point is Maradona was clearly flawed, but he led the underdog to glory and made them respected, which is why he's so adored. None of the others I've listed have had much adversity in their careers. Kobe played with Shaq and was with the second most historic franchise his entire career. Jordan was with an all-time great team, as was Messi. Cristiano went from one of the "big three" in Portugal, to biggest club in England, to the biggest in Spain, to the biggest in Italy. Maradona, however, went to an irrelevant Napoli side, in a city that was shat on by the whole of Italy (particularly the North) and carried them to respectability. Not to get too far off on a tangent, but this whole debate also extends to managers, and it's why I don't like Guardiola. Anyways, my point here is all these guys other than Maradona were athletes, he was something more. I'd maybe compare him to Ronaldinho, if I were to pick one modern footballer.

The annoying thing for me about modern football, and this has been the case in American sports for decades, is how "professional" it all is. It realistically doesn't allow for personalities, because people get butthurt online about every little thing, which is why the Cavani "incident" really grinds my gears. I wrote about the phony "take a knee" thing that's been going on for months now in English football, and the ridiculousness of it. This, however, is another level of pettiness and stupidity. The situation here is a guy, on his own social media account, uses the word "negrito" to respond to a friend. Now, as soon as it happens, there's the typical whataboutism going on with the Suarez-Evra thing a few years back. I don't know how obvious this is, but those are entirely different situations. First is that one's in person, the other's online. That much is obvious. Second is the intent; Suarez is talking to an opponent, not a friend, and the word is used as an insult rather than a form of endearment. Anyways, the reason I mention this is it's almost a slap in the face to black people watching English football that they do this "fake woke" BLM kneeling crap, while at the same time making a mockery of actual racism, which does exist, by acting holier than thou about something that was not by any means racist. Like, how are these people given the authority to decide what's "offensive" or not? Did they grow up in South America? Do they speak Spanish? No and no. For instance, I was listening to TUDN and they were referring to David Silva as "chino" because he has slanty eyes. Is that racist? Who cares. Look, if the FA, or whoever, want to "combat racism" in actual fact, rather than virtue signal, they'd do a hell of a lot more than take a knee for 3 seconds and talk about getting more "diversity" into positions of power. I guess it comes down to the weird "fetish" certain countries have about race. To act like people "don't see skin color" or whatever is weird, as is acting like white people are the cause of everything wrong and fellow whites have to stand up for "minorities" is also not the answer. I don't know the answer, but to get offended over nothing it is not.

So yeah, overall, the point here is the corporatization of the sport has created a culture where athletes aren't able to show their true selves. I'd even argue that their "true selves" may be robotic, boring individuals who only know their given sport, which is probably more sad than having to mask it. If kids are in academies learning football as well as whatever basic "education" they get, they have little to no interaction with the "real world" until they retire. And people wonder why athletes blow their money and suffer from depression and addictions once they no longer play the sport. I'm not saying being an alcoholic or drug addict is the best way to be an athlete, but it's not like the quality of life is suddenly better with the way things are now. Also, being afraid to be yourself on social media or in interviews gives a terrible account for these people, which is what they are first and foremost. One final example here is Marcus Rashford. I don't know the guy, obviously, but it's impressive that he's been taking up the role of what the government over there is supposed to be doing. I don't want this to be taken wrong, but it's just weird seeing that play out over social media. Think of the days before cameras were everywhere and people would just do good deeds for the sake of it, rather than getting praise online or "clout" or whatever. I'm sure he's doing it because he can, and doesn't want to see other people suffer like he did when he was growing up, but it just seems like being a "hero" has kinda changed. It's now about donating money or tweeting, when it's the little things like taking the time out of one's day to help, with no cameras or PR teams around. Again, I applaud what he's doing, which is more than most.