I cannot see how you consider football a microcosm of life (unless you have a very wealthy and fortunate life ? )
I don't accept that because football as an industry is a lot richer than the rest of society, it can't be viewed as a microcosm, everything is relative. The UK is a lot richer than a lot of other countries around the world, but I'm sure on a human level, society operates along broadly similar lines. Humans, regardless of material wealth, are motivated by the same hopes and fears are they not?
Sorry for the long quote here but Jean Paul Sartre explains why football is a metaphor for life a lot better than I can:
"Football: the most loved sport, the most hated, the most talked about… We have always been a people of coaches, but often we focus only on the “external” aspect of football, on victories and defeats. In reality, football is much more than that!
It’s a complex game, full of facets and many of the aspects and factors of this game are similar to those that we find in everyday life. We can consider football, in a sense, as a metaphor for our lives: there are many similarities between what is part of football (rules, aspects, roles, etc.) and our everyday life, that is, the society in which we live, the academic world, work, our family.
You could compare the game of football to a school of life, where you can learn from an early age to be in a group, to make sacrifices, to be responsible, to be altruistic (those who never pass the ball can be considered selfish in some cases), to be an example for their companions (especially by the captain of the team), to be loyal, and especially to be humble.
Let’s look specifically at some of these similarities:
The rules: in football there are rules to be respected as well as in life, those who do not respect them, for example when you commit a foul or an irregularity, is first warned and then expelled. Even in life, those who do not respect the rules are punished.
The objectives: one of the objectives of a team is to score goals, that is, to achieve victory. Even in life we can achieve different goals such as graduating, finding a job we like, changing house, realizing our dreams and our desires.
Conflicts: even in football there can be internal conflicts between players, for example when they do not get along with each other or when they have problems with the coach. In life, conflicts can occur in any area of our lives and we must learn to overcome them.
Group management: an essential element in a team is the management of the entire group, because the effectiveness of the team depends on the unity of the players and group play. Even in life, in society, in the work environment, at school or in the family, the management of the group is fundamental to improve the quality of the group itself.
Competence: those who play better than others are put on the field and will play more games. In society, at work or at school, those who are better are generally more successful.
We could go on for a long time talking about values like sacrifice, respect… Thinking of football as a metaphor for life, we can see how this sport so followed, like all team sports, becomes something more than a group game, because each sport “conveys” inner aspects very important for personal and professional growth, such as motivation, the sense of sacrifice, personal responsibility, respect for others."
No not in the slightest, I think you trying to shoehorn something into place, you are talking about a sport that is historically working class and then surprised that the cream of management (all of whom have climbed up the ranks) have socialist views, for example I am pretty sure that the 100 worst managers that have ever graced the game, the majority of those have a socialist leaning, by your logic Christians make the best managers, as do right handed people, white people, males, able bodies people etc, they all fit your criteria
Correlation does not imply causation, I understand that. It's just my belief that to a large extent, peoples political views are shaped by their personality traits. I'm pretty sure you would agree that creative, artistic types are more likely to be left leaning politically?
Here is an article on it:
There is evidence that part of the answer about where our beliefs come from is deep-rooted in our nature.
www.bbc.co.uk
Psychologists have identified 5 main traits in the human character, everyone posses these to varying degrees. The trait openness is associated with success in the creative industries, whilst conscientiousness more in fields like as banking etc. Openness is more aligned with left leaning views, conscientiousness more right wing.
It's possible to be high in both openness and conscientiousness, I would argue it's that blend of these character traits which define great managers. People who posses high levels of both of these traits are more likely to lean more towards left leaning ideas, which in my opinion explains why great managers are more likely to be socialists.
Lampard strikes me as someone who is massively high in conscientiousness, but low in openness. Being a highly successful football manager requires a high degree of creativity in responding to tactical situations as they arise in a match. As well as massive empathy and emotional intelligence to be able to deal with a diverse set of human beings and their emotions. This was my original point about what made Lampard so great as a player, will in my opinion hinder him in management. I'm not trying to knock Lampard as a person, he's a phenomenal human being. It's just a theory of mine - it might be total bullshit, but there you go.
Sorry for the long post, I'm aware people use football forums as a way of escaping talk of politics and the like so I'll leave it there now and shut up.
