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While this article is about soccer, it could well apply to almost any of todays sports. We seemingly have lost the ability to put events in their proper historical perspective.

Don't believe the hype

Hesse-Lichtenberger
Archive


In today's football coverage, the name of the game is hyperbole.


Superlatives are no longer a stylistic device but most reporters' standard mode of expression. On Saturday afternoon, for instance, I was having a late lunch or early dinner in the kitchen when suddenly the whole family gave a start, including the cat. There was a hysteric voice booming out of the tv set in the living room informing us that something was 'unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable'.


Since Chelsea's game at Birmingham City was on, I rushed over, expecting at the very least that Michael Ballack had scored with a bicycle kick from 20 yards out. But it was more or less ... well, nothing. Claudio Pizarro had headed home from the edge of the six- yard box following a Juliano Belletti corner.

It turned out that this was only Pizarro's second league goal for the Blues. And the first one had come - get this! - on the first day of the season against - wait for it! - Birmingham. According to the commentator, this was unbelievable, just unbelievable.

As someone who makes his living using words carefully, such thoughtlessness always annoys me. And it annoys others as well. Some ten years ago, I did an interview with Bernd Trautmann (Bert, to English readers). He said one of the major problems in the modern game was that football people were losing all sense of perspective, and he didn't mean because of sky-rocketing wages.

Trautmann said the media had become so fond of going over the top that you'd have fantastic saves, marvellous shots and world-class moves in even the most mundane of games. Trautmann said he could understand why the media was beefing things up but that this was ultimately counter-productive. It would lead armchair fans to expect things bread-and-butter games cannot deliver and it would lead players to think of themselves as stars - when in nine out of ten cases they were only doing what a professional athlete must be expected to do.

And there's another problem with the profusion of superlatives. What do you do when something is really out of the ordinary?