The underdog phenomenon is a complicated one, and I want to do it justice, but even sketching the outlines of what it entails is a herculean task, or perhaps Aristotelian. To follow up on what Supriya said in her last post, one can argue that all stories are either tragic or comic. Human beings, being narrative animals, understand all events in terms of the story they fit into. Underdogs are comic heroes, forever fighting superior forces: Jackie Chan against overwhelming numbers, Jerry against Tom, Josef K against the system. That seems to be true even though, unlike Jerry and Jackie, underdogs in the footballing world rarely win it all. In fact, underdogs rarely win anything at all in football, even in cup competitions, which are much less predictable than leagues. In the five major footballing countries of Europe there has only been one stunning underdog win these past ten years: En Avant de Guingamp winning the the Coupe de France in 2009, when the team was in Ligue 2.
But the fact that underdogs almost always lose in the end is a feature, not a bug, of the phenomenon. It would be awfully hard to root for Charlie Chaplin in his films if, instead of The Little Tramp, he played The Bloated Plutocrat. We cherish the underdog’s every victory, and feel pangs of sympathy at every setback. Supporting the underdog rarely if ever pays off big. Don’t get me wrong, watching an underdog win, say Hércules beating Barcelona, is tremendously satisfying, but in football, the underdog almost never wins it all. So why are so many people drawn to supporting the underdog? Why do people from outside England seek out teams to support in the Premier League that don’t stand a chance of winning?
There’s one facet we need to keep in mind when thinking about underdogs: how they fit a certain form of narrative understanding that seems to be universal in humanity. The great underdogs tend to be tricksters, showing up the powerful, and like tricksters, great underdogs have to be charming. If they aren’t, they’re just jerks who enjoy tormenting others. Sure, when you get right down to it, underdogs are teams that no one expects to win. But you can’t really root for every bad team against every good team. Well, you can, but it’s a poor spectacle when a bad team beats a good team by putting everyone behind the ball and making ugly tackles. An underdog has to be likable, whether it’s Roger Milla dancing at the corner flag, Ryan Nelsen putting on a masterclass in last-gasp defending, or Blackpool going for it, in game after game. Ah, Blackpool, this year’s great underdog, who’ve gripped my imagination like no other team this fall.
Earlier this year I was at a party, a farewell party for a couple of friends who are moving to the other side of a continent from me. I might never see them again. It’s Friday night, the party is brimming with friends, there are snacks and drinks aplenty, the conversation is witty and intelligent. So why am I thinking about Arsenal vs. Blackpool? Why have I decided not to drink any more beer so that I won’t be hungover when I get up in the morning to watch the game? Why is my friend shouting “the Gunners are gonna win it” at me? I thought the only sport he cared about was hockey. Why am I arguing back? There’s no way that Blackpool is going to win. Rationally, I’m not even sure I want them to win. Of the Big Three, I want Arsenal to become champions. They play an attractive, fun game. But here I am nailing my colors to the Blackpool mast, getting emotionally involved in a team I have no prior connection to.
Of course, you know what happened the next morning. Arsenal pummeled Blackpool into the ground. 6-0. I kept trying to look away, reading websites, catching up on the news, picking up the book I was reading, but nothing could distract me for too long. I kept returning to the game, watching the unfolding grimness. To be honest, the game was over when Ian Evatt was given the red card and Arshavin converted the penalty. I should’ve gotten up and gone out, enjoyed the fine weather, but I needed to watch until the end. I’m not sure why.
It’s that question that lies at the heart of it. Why do I care about Blackpool? And, also, why do I care about Arsenal? Neither team has any special claim to my heart. No team in the British Isles does. I’ve spent maybe 3 weeks total in England, and I’ve always followed the Premier League somewhat dispassionately. Except this year. This year my heart belongs to Arsenal and Blackpool. I don’t know why. I don’t know if this is going to stick, or if it’s just a one-season fling.
Underdogs are inherently contradictory: They’re the unfancied team everyone fancies. That’s easy enough, but when you start thinking about the psychology of supporting underdogs, things get tricky. It seems fairly evident to me that supporting underdogs is a form of pain management. If the team you’ve put your emotional faith in is never expected to win, every victory is a joy and every loss merely business as usual. Sure, they aren’t going to win the league or the cup, but anything short of relegation is to be celebrated. Staying in the top tier is glorious in and of itself. The obvious conclusion is that supporting underdogs is emotional cowardice, but I’m not happy with that interpretation, and not only because I myself am an inveterate supporter of underdogs, but because I don’t think it’s true.
The best explanation I can think is that supporting the underdog is the same basic human impulse that drives those countless popular movements in history that strive to level society, to make the meek equal to kings, erasing status and riches. Most football watchers want a game where anyone can win. We don’t want success to breed success. We want new champions every year. We hate the idea of a small number of clubs dominating a league. Does anyone desperately want Inter Milan to win the scudetto again, except maybe for Rafa Benítez? Who wants to see Barcelona and Real Madrid both finish over twenty points clear of the third placed team in La Liga? In a perfect world, there would be no underdogs because everyone would be equal. But until then we want the big dogs’ noses to bloodied by the perceived weaklings.
The most difficult problem is when we start thinking about people who do support the big teams. We make fun of people who root for big teams, we call them gloryhounds and worse, but really, if supporting the underdog is pain management, falling in love with a big team is emotional bravery worthy of a tragic hero. When a big team wins, it is merely expected. If a big team finishes second, it’s a crushing disappointment. If a big team goes years without winning anything, or falls off the pedestal, it’s asking for years of deep malaise. Witness Liverpool fans.
Supporting the underdog isn’t an ideological position, it’s just the desire to see the mighty brought low and the small triumph. Similarly, supporting big teams is a desire to see greatness rewarded, to see those who strive for excellence reach that level of excellence. I know both feelings. I want Blackpool to rampage through the Premier League, sowing discontent in the hearts of teams who feel themselves above small clubs. I want Arsenal to win the title because they strive for an ideal that I wish to see rewarded.
Kári Tulinius is an Icelandic poet and novelist. His first novel, Píslarvottar án hæfileika (Martyrs Without Talent), was published this spring in Reykjavík.
Read More: Arsenal, Blackpool, Underdogs
by Kári Tulinius · October 9, 2010
*COUGH* http://www.runofplay.com/2010/07/06/against-the-underdog/ *COUGH*
@Gareth I was just adding a link to that in the post.
@Gareth In all seriousness, I really do like Blackpool, in spite of their “plucky underdog” label. I think they’re playing some great football, and I rooted for them to beat Liverpool, which is a team that hasn’t deserved the label of “great team” for a long while now.
However, when it comes to the Hercules over Barcelona example, I’m not sure if I agree. What I don’t find satisfying about a lot of underdog victories is that an obviously inferior team manages to luck out a win by laying back and capitalizing on the better team’s mistakes, and that was more the case with Hercules (although I would note that Barcelona did play poorly and deserved to lose.)
@Brian Phillips Cool, thanks! If you could delete my comment, that’d be dandy.
@Gareth I’m a huge Barca fan, but I thought Hercules could’ve scored even more. Maybe 3-3 would have been fair…but although the coach claimed inspiration from Inter after the game, they played very differently.
Regarding underdogs and why we can relate – I think it’s worth noting that we usually see ourselves as underdogs, or at least often cast ourselves as such. ‘I didn’t study at all!’ creates the impression that a pass would be a miracle, so if we do okay, we can claim a greater victory. We always have things stacked against us, and secretly doubt our abilities.
Teams like Blackpool make our plight seem less damning.
PS – I see the underdogs scored against Romania.
@Gareth I agree with you on that point. Blackpool are playing out of their minds right now. It’s really exciting.
As an American die-hard Chelsea supporter it’s nice to see someone not throwing around the term “gloryhunter/hound” in reference to those of us who support a big club.
Anyway, as an Salvadoran-American both sides of my cultural background have been the definitions of underdogs in international football for decades, the United States not so much recently. I’d love to see El Salvador and the United States run at superior squads more often. I don’t want to watch my squad lay back and hope that something happens. I see it from time to time from both nations’ national teams. El Salvador does it more often against superior opponents (everyone but Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica) as a result of the manager’s “why the hell not?” attitude which I loved during the qualification campaign this time around. It doesn’t matter to me if we get blown out 10-1 in a World Cup match I want to be proud of the effort and bravery of the management to the players. Although, my father told me that 10-1 really hurt in ’82. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYC2witL__g
Finally, a question, does anyone know about “El Mago” Gonzalez? Salvadoran hero. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMemVOhSLRw — Be Amazed.
“But here I am nailing my colors to the Blackpool mast, getting emotionally involved in a team I have no prior connection to.”
At risk for taking a page out of cuddly sports films, we root for underdogs because hope is a heartbreakingly addictive thing. Even if the underdog was the sister with a “good personality” that we had no previous designs on, she’s suddenly looks smart in that sweater. If it is David and Goliath, emotions are frenzied, and at the end of it, on which side would you rather be that night? Dismissive excuse after dismissive excuse could be made as to why the favored failed, but listening to a sneering critic is not going to be as fun going for an unplanned celebratory beer run.
There is a different perspective that is lightly touched on … about the “great teams” or “super teams” factor.
Compared to individual sports, group sports have the feature of grouping individually great people together into one team. Some leagues have restrictions on that like the NBA … Granted the only restriction is money so if people want to they can each get less and, well… you get it.
Anyway, in league format like the premiership, the “super teams” really just ruin the day for an average football fan. Sure, we’d all like to see brilliant plans perfectly executed on the pitch and flair coming off every player but we just don’t have that many individually good players.
This is where group effort comes in. And this is where super teams are placed. Great group effort AND great individual talent for almost every single player.
So, what’s the different perspective. Well, that’s just bloody well not fair. Another part of rooting for the underdog is the simple yearning for playing fair … “sportsmanlike conduct” they call it. I remember a volleyball tournament I once took part in. Unfortunately our team only managed to get five people to play … but we played anyway. And we beat every other team until we played in the semi finals (well, we were one of the final three teams). In our semi-final game our opponents, seeing that we only had five players retired one of theirs off the field and played us five on five… they won.
Yes, we love seeing the magic happen … the magic truly talented players can often provide. But that’s no reason to root for super teams. It is a reason to cheer for their defeat because that’s magical.
Thank you for an excellent post, Kari. I do think that the ‘desire to see the mighty brought low and the small triumph’ is ideological thinking in itself – not that this is necessarily bad, just that it feeds into our own construction of identity and position vis-a-vis the world, no matter how transcendental our joy in it is (and as football fans we know how fleeting bliss is *g*). It’s also evident in that, as you point out, we rarely have a fixed notion of who the underdog should be, unless we are physically linked with that entity in the way, f.e. Blackpool fans in Blackpool may be. The identity of the underdog itself mutates depending on the situation. I mean, who would I root for in an Arsenal-Panathinaikos game in the Champions’ League?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/oct/27/real-madrid-alcorcon-copa-del-rey
“If they aren’t, they’re just jerks who enjoy tormenting others. Sure, when you get right down to it, underdogs are teams that no one expects to win. But you can’t really root for every bad team against every good team. Well, you can, but it’s a poor spectacle when a bad team beats a good team by putting everyone behind the ball and making ugly tackles.”
Witness the almost universal bemoaning of Greece in 2004. Most of those who celebrated their achievement did so only on grounds of their likelihood of ever winning a major tournament–the less said about their tactics, the better.
@roswitha My feeling is that the desire to see the mighty brought low and the downtrodden rise up isn’t an ideological position so much as a basic human impulse that is the impetus for a lot of ideological fervor. It certainly isn’t unique to socialism, Christianity etc. Jebus knows there have been peasant revolts as long as there have been lords and peasants.
As a Man United supporter since my early years, I often get the “gloryhound” tag thrown at me, even more so since I started following baseball back in 2006 and became a New York Yankees fan. Fact is, I follow Man Utd because my Uncle did and he was a footballing authority to me at that age; it wasn’t really a choice I made. With baseball I perhaps had more of an opportunity to “choose” a team, but as I grew to love the game it was the history of baseball that drew me in. I researched the old players, the famous games and legendary moments in order to understand the game better, and the more I learned the more I loved baseball and the more I felt myself aligning with the Yankees. I didn’t end up choosing, I ended up falling for the team that had helped me fall in love with the game.
So I happen to be a fan of perhaps the two most überdog teams in their sports, and get plenty of stick for it, but I was reflecting (with the baseball postseason getting underway) that I accept I’ll probably never experience the highs of, say, a Twins fan, whenever they do win it all, because a win for the Yankees is expected and familiar (though not so much for me, last year being their first since I strated following them), anything less demands scrutiny and change. In footballing terms, the first time a team from outside the big 4 wins the Premiership will be a moment in the lives of those fans who follow the team that I’ll never be able replicate in my life as a fan. The highs aren’t as high and while they are more freguent, so to are the disappointments because of the expectation involved.
I take great joy in watching smaller teams do well in both sports, almost like living vicariously through them, as they experience relegation battles or lifting themselves into European places like Fulham did last year. I search out those opportunities to revel in the underdog triump because it is something missing from my own fandom.
Sometimes we do not have a choice. Croatia (by nationality), Seahawks – NFL and Sounders-MLS because I live in Seattle, so I am stuck with underdogs, and I love it.
@Dagoberto How the f*** haven’t I heard of that guy??? Blew my mind!!!
Thank you!!!
Just support the MLS, they’re pretty consistently inconsistent as far as winners go.
I found this article really interesting (clicked on the link to your site from Zonal Marking). I support Burnley because that’s my home town and I was brought up to be fiercely proud of the club’s history and heritige. As a result I’ve always had an inverted snobbery for supporters of big clubs that they have no logical connection to and seen them as ‘lesser’ football fans, ignorant or ‘glory hunters’. But as I’ve got older and grown less Anglo-centric I’ve started to grow fond of teams in other European leagues that I have no connection to like Barcelona, Ajax, Napoli and FC Mainz (mainly a one season Tuchel infatuation rather than a geunine bond with the club!) which, obviously, contradicts my own views. I’m still a staunch Burnley supporter but I’m much more understanding now about fans who support the big clubs and can see that it’s easy enough to be seduced, especially as a young boy, by great players or managers. If it wasn’t for my Dad I could quite easily have attached myself to Keegan’s mid ’90s Newcastle team of Ginola, Asprilla et al rather than Jimmy Mullen’s Division Two Burnley. Keep up the good work, I’ll definitely be bookmarking this site!
As a Real Betis fan from days long ago living in Spain, I know too well that “my club” is regularly a messy (and melodramatic) underdog. Nice article. Growing older, I appreciate that ups-and-downs of following Betis and knowing that even when I was young, I didn’t sell my soul…