2023-11-16 09:00:02
BarcelonaMarc-André ter Stegen is now captain of Barça and is once again considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world, but two years ago he was going through one of the worst moments of his career at the Barcelona club. Weighed down by problems in his right knee, the German had lost agility and ability to react in relation to past seasons, and this was noticeable in his performances on the grass. So much so, that this newspaper did a report analyzing the side on which he received the goals and consulting expert voices on his loss of performance.
Days after that publication, Ter Stegen took advantage of an appearance to refer to it. “You wrote something to add petrol and I understand that because it’s your job, but I analyze mine and I’m very happy with my performance,” said the Mönchengladbach player, who was upset by the informative piece of the NOW and above all because of a statement from the exporter Andrés Palop that was included. And when the criticism comes from a colleague, it hurts more than when it is issued by a journalist.
Ter Stegen’s is an example that illustrates what Xavi Hernández wanted to express after last Sunday’s pyrrhic victory over Alabès in Montjuïc. Without going into how reading or hearing comments related to their work or their lives affects them, there is a common reality: Barça players are aware of what is being said about them in all the media. In public, when asked at a press conference, they often claim that they stay out of the celebrity environment, but in reality they have daily control over what is published.
The nuance is in the mechanism they use to be informed. “They all have parents, siblings, partners or representatives who forward what comes out to them. And it affects them, of course”, assure Blaugrana sources in this regard. But beyond that, more and more players have paid professionals who monitor and sometimes guard their reputations in the media. These figures have become popular in recent years – as part of the professionalization of the football business – and they work in a network with the members of Barça’s communication department, who in some cases, especially when there are commercial brands in the middle, up to and they all lose autonomy to do their work. “This dressing room [el del Barça] it has become a large corporation with small multinationals inside”, states, in this sense, another person who works in the Ciutat Esportiva de Sant Joan Despí. “And this is only noticeable at a commercial or communication level”, he adds .
Players own their own message
These communications managers help footballers keep their official social media channels well-nourished, which over time have become a tool with thousands or millions of followers where the message, whether sporting or casual, does not receive the incidence of third parties. “You don’t need to do interviews to send a message,” Gerard Piqué said about this in a visit to The cassock. Despite this independence without intermediaries provided by Instagram, Twitter or Twitch, the players, at the behest of their representatives, also delegate to these professionals again the relationship and emptiness related to the traditional media, which are full of news that talk about ‘they.
The most mechanical task is clipping, which consists of gathering all the mentions in journalistic pieces and, if you want to go further, also in social networks. Then, depending on what is collected and the impact it generates on the athlete, the dircom individual may contact the journalist in question to clarify the information and even demand its withdrawal. An extreme (and recent) example in this line is played by Frenkie de Jong, who, annoyed by the appearance in a medium of his detailed salary, did his hands and sleeves, arm in arm with the club, to make the publication disappear. In the past, when a player read something he didn’t like, he would directly speak to the reporter in question in the mixed zone or after training, without intermediaries. Now the bunkerization of football has added coldness to the process.
“I have media blocked”: a half-truth
On the other hand, the staffs communication skills of top level footballers suggest favorable journalistic approaches. The clearest example of these actions was played months ago by Ferran Torres, who, advised by his team, summoned journalists off the record to talk in the first person about football and mental health taking advantage of the fact that he had played a very good match against Cadiz. Some time after that meeting, the Valencian winger went to The anthill and said: “I don’t usually have contact with the media. I have them blocked. It’s better not to read anything because you always get the bad comment.” Indeed, the contact is not direct, but that does not mean that it does not exist. Also, having blocked the media is a reaction to exposure via social networks, where comments and noise multiply. In fact, aware of this effect, Leo Messi, the athlete with the most followers, denied via Instagram, the day after receiving the Ballon d’Or, information that linked him to Barça. Global impact
Xavi, who is a voracious consumer of sports press, is right when he says that his footballers are no strangers to the enormous amount of content that is published about them in the media, on the networks and on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. Even if the newspapers physically disappeared from the Barça dressing room on the orders of Henk ten Cate, Frank Rijkaard’s second coach, and the mixed areas are no longer what they were, the players and coaches are still well soaked in published opinion.
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