It was the time of the Preacher

Everyone everywhere seems to be interested in wanting to teach The Zlatan how to behave. Journalists, "Experts", Refs - all of them feel the need to advise him on what not to do or to advise him on what he might be doing, few are interested in commenting on what he actually is doing. What I've seen of him lately is a striker who has lost his confidence in front of goal while still contributing immensely to the team effort. Normally the comments would run along the lines of how loyal the Swedish player is, how his teamwork is appreciated and so on. Not so for Ibrahimovic. He has a goal draught. He has a temper. He gets angry. When someone (say Mats Olsson of Expressen) comments on these comments he would claim that it is because The Zlatan's last name is Ibrahimovic that he is treated in this way, hinting at an underlying racism or at least that all commentators are discussing him on the merits of his "otherness" from other Swedish athletes.

What I find when I read about football is that it is rather the commentators that try to live up to some new, "other" ideal, both when discussing Ibrahimovic and when discussing football in general. It seems to me that it is the commentator experts that are trying to live up to something they believe is warranted - the complete focus on short term results (anyone is prepared to confidently predict the outcome of an entire season on one pre-season game), winners (the result is often regarded as an inevitable conclusion in post-game summaries these days) and the "no memory - no learning" paradigm ("experts" unabashedly ignore that the team/player they are currently hailing as The Second Coming were considered useless by them only last week).

Their very status as experts become impossible since they believe that expressing the flavor of the day is what is expected of them, while NOT conforming to popular shallow opinion is exactly what constitutes an expert. The experts should not to be confused with journalists, who have a different part to play. Yet to me it seems that any difference between the roles of expert and journalist has close to vanished and some kind of predictable nonsensical consensus has emerged as the norm. More on this later when I can be bothered to write coherently.

It was the Time of the Preacher
In the year of 01
Now the preaching is over
And the lesson's begun