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How can you love a football team consisting of a rotating selection of foreigners and guys born on the other side of your country? And sold to the highest bidder, who also happens to be foreign a lot of the time, if not a literal multinational conglomerate?
But people do. (shrug)
A few weeks ago, Scott had a post where he described how he thought food critics did their jobs. He was already familiar with the concept of double-blinding in medicine, and assumed that being a food critic was similar, with a restaurant's dishes being delivered to the critic's house in unmarked packages, perhaps literally spoon-fed to the blindfolded critic to ensure that he won't be biased by things like the restaurant's "ambiance", interior design or how the food is presented (as opposed to its taste, texture etc.). When he found out how food critics actually do their jobs, he was disgusted.
I had a bit of a shock of recognition, because when I was a child, I assumed that the footballers playing for Manchester United had to be from that city, or at the very least had to have lived within its borders for a significant period of time, so that the players are in some way representative of the sporting talent of that city. Otherwise, in what sense is it meaningful to say "we" beat Arsenal last night?
But no: it turns out the players are just the best people that team could afford with absolutely no familial connection to the city of any kind. Even in the Olympics, my understanding is that you only have to be a citizen to represent "your" country.
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