Soccer

You can't make me hate Marcus Rashford

With the news that Marcus Rashford has moved to Aston Villa, I was reminded of something my friend Kyri posted on Bluesky1 that I totally agreed with: you can’t make me dislike Rashford. We’re all grown and more aware than ever of how institutions cover things up. We don’t have to believe interview snippets and official statements on face value. Maybe he hasn’t conducted himself in a professional manner (whatever that may mean). But the vilification and siding with Manchester United Football Club is wild to me, albeit unsurprising from fans. It’s always club comes first no matter what and I used to be one of those people. But after I stopped caring so much about football and viewed things from different perspectives, I questioned things a lot more. The stories are rarely clear cut and accurately one-sided.

I spent 19 years of my life supporting the club. I laughed, I cried (1999), I screamed so much that my throat went hoarse (2008). I still have memorabilia that I treasure. But whatever Manchester United are doing now, I give a wide berth. I genuinely hate to see it.

It’s been messy and embarrassing to watch for a while. They have a rotten atmosphere and a rotten board room that are happy to protect people like Ryan Giggs and Mason Greenwood but felt no way about kicking other players to the curb for all kinds of egotistical reasons. Success and branding have overshadowed a lot of decisions, ranging from questionable to despicable. They’ve not treated the women’s team with the respect they’ve deserved in the past and even recently (see also, again, Greenwood). And now Ratcliffe is trying to undercut from within like he’s hosting a fire sale. It stinks.

So you can miss me with any kind of “Rashford thinks he’s bigger than the club/he needs to play for the shirt week in, week out” crap. Ferguson’s era had a host of players do outlandish shit2 and get away with it. Don’t be parrot and copy tired tropes that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

  1. There was more to it but it’s hidden from non-logged in users ↩︎
  2. I just want to point out that I adore Cantona and even though I fully back his decision to kick that dude, that shit was still wild lol ↩︎

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