Unbalancing act Pundits' showy partisanship reflects football's embrace of fan-centric populism

Pundits' showy partisanship reflects football's embrace of fan-centric populism

- Jonathan Liew

Impartiality fan here - for my sins! - but you have to say Robbie Savage and Rio Ferdinand during the closing minutes of Manchester United v Lyon on Thursday were class. It all starts in the 118th minute, with United 6-5 down on aggregate, and the TNT Sports camera lingering on the face of a crying boy in the crowd. "Let's hope we can put a smile on that young man's face by the time we finish," the commentator Darren Fletcher says. And it's worth unpacking those 17 words, because within them are at least three layers of assumption. Foremost among which is the assumption that it would be a good thing, all round, if United won. The child is crying. Is there any image more guaranteed to tug at the tear ducts, than a crying child? The coefficient can wait for now. But there is a second assumption. The use of the first person - "let's", "we" - is a signal we're all on the same side here. That everyone watching this broadcast is - or should be - United-aligned. But there is a third layer of assumption: that Fletcher, Savage and Ferdinand are not simply commentators but protagonists, enjoined in the battle as surely as any of the players on the pitch, with the power not simply to witness events but to generate them. And so it proves, as United overturn their deficit in the 120th and 121st minutes, and the TNT three-way goes into full climactic overdrive. "Just go for it," Savage urges as United get the ball forward. "Oh my god," rasps Ferdinand as Kobbie Mainoo buries the equaliser into the corner. "Aaawyyghaawgh," squeals Savage as Harry Maguire nods in the winner: a first draft of history to bear comparison with anything Tacitus, Gibbon or Hobsbawm committed to print. Savage played