Weststander
Well-known member
I often wonder if sporting greats in other cultures and nationalities are treated the same as in this country.
Say someone like Maradona, clearly a very flawed human being but a genius with the ball and worshiped like a god in Argentina.
I find some mentalities in this country very strange, we choose to highlight character flaws or bad moments instead of seeing the true greatness that’s right in front of our eyes, it’s not just Lewis either, we see it with many sports stars, I remember when Murray won Wimbledon and the Olympics, people choose to remember ‘this guy joked about wanting England to lose’ instead of appreciating the history of a British man winning massive honours.
I’d love to know if it’s the same in other countries, do some Argentinians hate Messi? Do some Jamaicans hate Usain Bolt? I suspect they are probably viewed as gods, and not disliked for living in Monaco or wearing weird clothes.
Many other countries ranging from the US to Sweden, as well as all the ex Soviet and ex Yugoslavian nations, have a huge pride in their winning national sports teams and sports folk. Winners revered, almost gods.
Whilst in the UK there’s always been, even before social media, a large rump who have to hate a winner. I knew sports ‘loving’ Brits who variously wanted e.g. Mansell, D.Hill, Faldo, Lyle, Radcliffe, Piggott, Botham, Gower, Willis, Guscott, M.Johnson to fail. When asked why, the reply was never a carefully argued reason, instead the quite spiteful “I can’t stand the bloke/woman”.
Which runs in parallel with tabloid hacks, built of the same DNA, seemingly on a mission to destroy our stars.
If Ibrahimovic was a Brit, you could be sure that say one third of us would despise him.