On Being: Brendan

Posted by Iain Macintosh

GettyImages / John Powell/Getty ImagesBrendan Rodgers is clearly the right man for Liverpool -- once you get past his David Brent-isms, that is.

One thought struck me as I watched the first episode of "Being: Liverpool": This isn't going to be very good, is it?

This isn't a slight against the producers, whose aptitude and flair cannot be in question. After all, this is a very glossy show. So glossy, in fact, and so very stylised, that you're always half-expecting chief executive Ian Ayre to offer you a unique opportunity to invest in property in Dubai or an exciting new Internet start-up. This isn't a fly-on-the-wall show -- this is a fly-at-a-sales-convention show. We're not seeing anything that Liverpool don't expressly want us to look at. And this is not how football documentaries should be.

The greatest football documentary ever was "The Impossible Job," the story of Graham Taylor's hapless attempt to take England to the 1994 World Cup. Taylor knew why the cameras were there, but he seemed to forget about them within a week. The players, it emerged later, never asked why the cameras were following them around and thought nothing of it, in some cases assuming that the footage was for internal use only. The result was a voyeuristic masterpiece, a documentary that wasn't so much "warts and all" as nothing but warts. At one point, a swiftly disintegrating Taylor exploded on the touchline with a strangled cry of "We've done that! Faaaargh! CAN WE NOT KNOCK IT?!" and the show passed into legend.

"Being: Liverpool" will not pass into legend. It is unlikely that we will ever see Rodgers asking his troops if they cannot knock it. It is unlikely that we will ever see Rodgers in any position of weakness.

Taylor told his camera crew he'd been waking up in the middle of the night with his heart pounding, so covered in sweat that he would have to change the sheets. These days, we would all recognise those as symptoms of chronic anxiety, evidence of dangerous levels of stress. In 1993, those being far less enlightened times, admitting to mental fragility was like admitting you wore your wife's underwear to work. Real men didn't suffer from stress. "The Impossible Job" broke ground on more than one level.

This show doesn't even break a sweat.

Nevertheless, there is a fragility on display in "Being: Liverpool," specifically when their manager is Being: Brendan. Rodgers appears to have quite a weakness for "management-speak." In the United States -- and we shouldn't forget that's the market this show was made for -- "management-speak" is generally accepted as part of the norm. In England, where the bleak weather has made us a dark-hearted, cynical lot, we're rather less forgiving.

"You can only trust yourselves, no one else," growls Rodgers before lapsing into a Monty Python's "Spanish Inquisition"-style flourish: "You can trust the fans. You can trust your families." " ... Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear. And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope," etc.

Perhaps the Americans would forgive glaring contradictions like that, but we won't.

"I grew up, not with a silver spoon, but with a silver shovel," says Rodgers wistfully.

What does that even mean? Rodgers presumably means that he was privileged, but still made to work, but with a silver shovel? That sounds a lot more expensive than a silver spoon. That's just showing off.

It's lovely when he says the people who make the tea at Melwood are every bit as important as him and the players. It's genuinely endearing, but it's also laying it on a bit thick.

And when it is revealed that Rodgers has a portrait of himself in his house, even if it does transpire to be a gift from his former club, that's when you begin to worry that he might be lacking a little self-awareness. Put it up, don't put it up, but for the love of God take it down before the camera crew turn up.

Footballers aren't stupid. Well, some of them are thunderingly stupid, but that's the same of any industry. Footballers can also be sharp-tongued and cruel. The bulk of those players have worked under Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish in little over two years and they're not going to be won over with a few David Brent-isms. It won't be long before someone starts Being: Brendan in the dressing room, and it won't stay there. There are senior players at that club who haven't exactly been slow to brief against Rodgers' predecessors.

The Ulsterman is clearly the right man for Liverpool, assuming that they have the patience to see this "year dot" project through. You cannot just click the button marked "Play like Barcelona"; you have to work and work and work, making countless mistakes before you settle into a rhythm. But that may not be the biggest concern if Rodgers keeps burbling nonsensical platitudes at everyone.

The producers weren't able to catch the cast of Liverpool Football Club off-guard, but perhaps that doesn't matter. They've captured more than enough while they were "on guard" to raise a few eyebrows.

Iain Macintosh is the UK Football Correspondent for The New Paper in Singapore and the co-author of "Football Manager Stole My Life" from @backpagepress. You can follow him on Twitter on @iainmacintosh

ESPN Conversations


To comment, you must be a registered user. Please Sign In or Register