Reporting in the “ideal world
Now, here too, it is to be offered what it could or should look like in the “ideal world”. However, it is by no means a utopia but rather things very easily realisable that should make a positive, objective, correct, humane and at the same time entertaining kind of reporting possible – and at the same time actually lure viewers back in front of the screen in their multiplicity.
There will always be one of three match outcomes. 1, X or 2. Team 1 wins, team 2 wins or the game ends in a draw. There are only a few events that find entry in the final result. These are the goals. The number of shots, great chances, corner kicks, possession, crosses, brilliant saves, perhaps, or dangerous actions without a finish, hits on the crossbar or post, all these actions ensure that the spectator likes to watch the game of football at all (the differentiation fan of this or that team to the neutral spectator is uniformly so, that the fans are perhaps mainly interested in the result, but roughly speaking these neutralise each other and the neutral spectator should therefore be the main addressee and taster of what is on offer) and the more such actions, the better, the more exciting, the higher the entertainment value, but all these so beautiful and welcome actions are not valued.
From this alone one can see that a 1:0 victory could by no means always “perfectly” reflect the conditions here. It may well happen that it is nevertheless deserved, it may even be the case that in a larger number of cases the better team wins, but this will by no means always be the case. There are also clearer results, of course, which are then increasingly likely to reflect the circumstances, but it would still not always be the case. Nevertheless, the general rule is: there is a result and there are the ratios in the statistics, in the goal actions, which by no means have to be in harmony with each other.
In addition to these actions, which nowadays can even be recorded electronically in all major leagues and thus express the ratios better than the pure result would, there are also the referees’ decisions, which by no means, and certainly not in a single match, would balance each other out in terms of justice. Here, the influence of the players and coaches is even less than in the pure match shares. With many very close results in the highest divisions, it is immediately clear that it can (and often enough will) depend on a single whistle or non-whistle that this or that team comes out on top.
In addition, there is, of course, the true performance capacity of the teams as well as the expectations of spectators, spectators, media, players, coaches and other responsible persons. The “true performance capacity” is a difficult quantity to determine, especially as it is highly dynamic and subject to developments. Nevertheless, it is “objectively” based, so to speak. Here, the coaches can actually exert their influence on the extent to which the existing potential is called upon and can develop or unfold positively. A highly complex matter, but nevertheless at least mentioned here.
Now, in a single match and in the course of it, the first question will be how the playing conditions would be expected – be it called “objective” again here — and how these turned out in the match itself. These, too, will by no means be reliably in harmony with each other. So it certainly happens that team A has the better statistics, although this could/should have been expected of team B. However, it happens that team B still wins. So everything would be in order again because the favourite would have won, but such a favourite may also have basically fallen short of its expectations in the game itself in terms of pure statistics (too few shots on goal, too little possession, too few corner kicks or whatever, possibly too few of them in all categories).
There are now all sorts of constellations of match conditions expected to have occurred and in addition there are a few “dull” results that say so very little about how the match actually went or could/should/must have gone.
The only point of reference for the reporters, however, is the result. They also seem to be of the opinion that you only become an expert when you can prove the correctness of each result in some way. So if you obviously miss a lot of big chances, the real expert doesn’t ever recognise bad luck, but a “weakness in finishing”, which can then be used to explain everything anyway, but he then also likes to add a “miserable” as his expert status grows, because that’s how you make it big. Remember: the lower you make the critic, the higher you stand yourself.
The aim here is not to strike a critical note again, but to present the reporting in the “ideal world”. Match conditions, expected match conditions, expectations beforehand, assessments and the final result are not necessarily in harmony with each other. That is the core message. They are not even in harmony in a large number of cases. Rather, it happens only occasionally – but only because of the complexity of the matter and not because of misjudgements, since these are supposed to be separated out with the word “objective”. The media themselves sometimes implant false expectations, especially when the national team is playing or a German team is competing in a European competition. Nevertheless, this is not what is meant here for the time being.
However, the complicity would suffice even as it is. There are a multitude of factors that influence the outcome of a match. Many of them, however, are not caused by the disadvantaged team (in the case of a draw – see the three-point rule – there are often two losers, or, alternatively, an underdog who nevertheless considers himself lucky with the “partial success”) but are simply subject to chance.
First of all, therefore, the circumstances of the game would have to be cited without evaluation (just as an adjective evaluating them should not be constantly added to other things; it was a “shot”, as an example, and not a “weak ball”, an “imprecise finish”, a “harmless attempt” or an otherwise unsuitable one). Now, one could certainly try to bring these into alignment with the expectations and the result. In this case, the match assessments would very often be completely different.
If individual teams often achieve good scores and yet no good results, then of course one should not question the coach here – as it will nevertheless happen in practice. The results would already improve at some point. The “hectic activity” that always occurs when the hoped-for results fail to materialise – initiated by the media – only leads to things being changed that were actually right.