Spoiler alert
Daniel Farke's Leeds exist in an anxious atmosphere of TripAdvisoring the heck out of a pub before crossing the threshold but a football team can not, no matter how predictable it might seem, guarantee anyone a good time.
The common comparison between football and theatre has never worked because you can't know the result of football in advance, whereas part of the experience of theatre — or cinema, or music, or television, or books — is knowing beforehand that this thing you're watching will resolve pleasurably. Sure, you might not know exactly how. You can avoid spoilers, avoid mentions of the plot twist, the dramatic ending. But you can know in advance that there will be one. The architecture of the thing makes it finite and to an extent predictable, so that by the time you're in the pub talking about the film you've just seen you know you'll have an ending to talk about. You can know, too, that other people have seen this film before you, and they've said with a wink that this show is worth getting a ticket for.
I think this has shifted a bit. Spoiler alerts have been traded away in return for guarantees of a good time. It feels like audiences are more willing to know the ending in advance, making films and gigs less about finding out, more about confirming. People are going to see Wicked in cinemas the way people go to see their favourite bands — to sing along to the hit songs they already like. In an uncertain world people want reassurance, and are seeking entertainment on that basis. Or seeking everything on that basis. Products, including performances, including art, are being reviewed to an extent that was impossible before the internet, and reading opinions online is now an intrinsic part of a purchase. See what a hundred other people thought about this toaster. Check the aggregate opinions before going to see that film. Be sure, as sure as you can be, that you're going to get a good time. Last week, I spent ages reading reviews of a nice pen that costs £2.50. Over the next week, I'll go to two football matches costing more than ten times that, sight unseen.
Football, despite all the writing and television and podcasts discussing its every detail, despite the money and attention spent on marketing and hype, hasn't a way into this culture of certainty. Football might feel predictable but that's actually what a lot of people want, and don't get. The story of a match can't be written in advance. Statistical and tactical predictions are useless the moment a manager picks an unexpected formation or a centre-forward gets out the wrong side of bed. You can't choose a match ticket with the same guarantee of entertainment you can get from reading theatre reviews. Think of all those tourists going to watch Manchester City lately: a team that's great for ten years can suddenly be terrible for six matches in ways a West End show would never be.
A problem of Daniel Farke's Leeds is that it exists in this anxious atmosphere of TripAdvisoring the heck out of a pub before crossing the threshold but a football team can not, no matter how predictable it might seem, guarantee anyone a good time. Or a bad time. Or a preferred outcome — especially given the disagreement among Leeds fans about what outcome, promotion to the Premier League or not, they might prefer.
In a football match you get a result at the end, but that's not the same thing as an ending. The dominant question is always there after a game: how will this season and beyond turn out and will we like it? There aren't hundreds of Amazon reviews to trawl through for a definitive answer on whether Farke's Leeds will be worth your time and money, the way there are reviews for everything else in your life. You just have to put up with the football to find out for yourself. Which, once upon a time, was its main selling point. Unpredictability, drama when you least expect it. Italia '90 was a borefest but the moments it gave to football endure. There was a reward for sticking with it. Football might be one of the last enforcers of an attention span, which is the reason people like Gianni Infantino fear for its future in a TikTok world, and people like Marcelo Bielsa fear for its future if people like Infantino have their way with it.