Lampard Hate

[Ulrich]

I think the point is, fuck lampard, but the booing is affecting the entire team.

Is it though? Other than when he subbed on, was he booed during play - I didn't hear any (I heard two guys booing in my section at the sub)?

Yes Harrison tweeted about it, but other than that, is there any evidence that any of the players are being affected? Lampard seems to have thick skin and brushed off the RB booing - why should any of the other players be taking it to heart about the team or their own play?

And I'm not trying to be pugilistic- I really don't know the answer to this, but short of having definitive proof that the team's moral is adversely affected by the booing geared towards a single player when they step on the pitch, and not because the team coughed up 2 points, I think this is ludicrous for anybody to be saying so. If people want to boo, that's their prerogative- I booed at RB and cheered on Sunday, not because I was excited to see him sub on, but considering our cursed injury history, because I was happy he didn't pull a muscle running out.

 

[LionNYC]

Well apparently we could buy out Lampard's contract...

https://twitter.com/x/status/737753322027765760

 

[NYCFCfan]

Well apparently we could buy out Lampard's contract...

https://twitter.com/x/status/737753322027765760

We can.

But we also have to take the cap hit and wouldn't be able to sign another DP because we couldn't afford it.

 

[mgarbowski]

We can.

But we also have to take the cap hit and wouldn't be able to sign another DP because we couldn't afford it.

By which you mean we wouldn't be allowed to pay the first $4xx,xxx of salary that counts against the cap for a DP, is that right? Because whatever we paid Lampard, including first half salary and buyout would still count towards that.

 

[horseytweets]

Since when players care about boos?

 

[NYCFCfan]

By which you mean we wouldn't be allowed to pay the first $4xx,xxx of salary that counts against the cap for a DP, is that right? Because whatever we paid Lampard, including first half salary and buyout would still count towards that.

Right it's only whatever that amount is. Everything above the maximum salary charge comes from the club's pockets.

 

[adam]

You guys saying there's not enough GAM floating around (or that Garber can make magically appear to fix a huge PR problem) to cover the added cap costs of a pro-rated DP charge on our roster for the remainder of the season? Roughly $2xx,xxx?

 

[TabascoDiva]

Agree. At 5-0, I don't think divine intervention would have worked anyway.

Regardless, I really like Lampard and have for a number of years. The "hate" is born of frustration with the lack of transparency from CFG. If we get the Pirlo-Lamps-Villa super locomotive running, it will be a thing of beauty and all "hate" will dissipate. If is a small word with huge connotations, but I'm positive this is going to work.

I don't hate Lampard. I am upset that a large chunk of the budget has been allocated to a "Elite DP" that has not contributed to the success of the team. All Frank has done is shown his body presence, his good looking smile , dreamy pretty eyes and occasionally signing autographs and photographs meanwhile he has not put sweat, blood , frustrations and possibly tears on the pitch. Like our world class striker ,Capitan Villa and now Pirlo is showing us why he is considered "the maestro" Regardless of the game results and standings on the season, we have gotten to uuuuhhh and aaahh both stars on their contributions to the success of NYCFC.


Lampard, may had been a world class player and shown his talents in Europe. But I am American fan, and he is in America and so far have not seen that talent some of the fans in this forum speak about. I feel he is here to just retire with a nicely plumply paid long vacation. Being fair to Lampard, The team ownership needs better lawyers to make better contracts and look out for the loopholes.

 

[JayH]

Being fair to Lampard, The team ownership needs better lawyers to make better contracts and look out for the loopholes.

There are at least 25 of them to choose from here on Forums Forums & Forums LLP

 

[Gene]

 

[Fantazma]

players are affected by boos? .....welp we are fucked.

 

[Tom in Fairfield CT]

Since when players care about boos?

players are affected by boos? .....welp we are fucked.

FootyLovin 's head is going to explode

 

[BxLio91]

I guess boos were the reason why they left Larin, Baptista and Molino wide open in the box.

 

[FootyLovin]

short of having definitive proof that the team's moral is adversely affected by the booing geared towards a single player when they step on the pitch, and not because the team coughed up 2 points, I think this is ludicrous for anybody to be saying so.

Since when players care about boos?

FootyLovin 's head is going to explode

What time of day do you make your best decisions?
Will you play soccer better tomorrow if you eat pasta or chicken soup today?
What is priming?

Every day we are all subject to thousands of experiential inputs that influence our behavior at an unconscious level. This article makes the good point that, "Athletes don’t just do; they think. Decisions have to be made in an instant."

For example, stress (you know, like, the feeling one might have from being booed) reduces people's ability to see risk in their decision making. Now when it comes to soccer, where do we want players to see risk? On defense.

Of course players are going to say the booing doesn't get to them. And at a conscious level they may be right. But if you believe that nothing happens to a player's brain when he is booed vs. cheered you are rejecting much of the entire fields of psychology and neuroscience. And for that matter, why the hell are you cheering for other players?

If your boos make no difference, why should your cheers?

And if you really still need another reason, imagine this conversation.

Villa: I love it. Great city. Fun league. You should totally come over.
Torres: I notice you didn't mention the fans.
Villa: Yeah. Well. If that's important to you, Portland is great. SKC too.
Torres: And NYC?
Villa: Well ... they like me, but you better hope you don't pull a hamstring.

If you think players don't notice this stuff, you're nuts. And I want NYCFC to be a premier destination.

 

[NYCFCfan]

Villa: I love it. Great city. Fun league. You should totally come over.
Torres: I notice you didn't mention the fans.
Villa: Yeah. Well. If that's important to you, Portland is great. SKC too.
Torres: And NYC?
Villa: Well ... they like me, but you better hope you don't pull a hamstring.

If you think players don't notice this stuff, you're nuts. And I want NYCFC to be a premier destination.

To be fair I think you're reaching a bit. Every team in the world has fans that have booed their own players. Lampard's Chelsea being the perfect example.

It's not a foreign concept to most people. From what I've gathered the question is usually "how are the people?" And the answer is always a great one, NYC being a place where fans will cheer them on (and on occasion boo) but overall when walking down the street the interactions are pleasant and they're not hounded here like they would be in other countries.

Does booing negatively affect the psyche of players, probably, even if they say it doesn't. I think this conversation has jumped the shark though.

Lampard for all he has accomplished in England hasn't quite lived up to the billing in MLS. Aside from us here on this forum who are hardcore fans, most casual fans don't really care. They won't boo, they might cheer, but they don't care.

I think the booing was needed to send a message to the front office and the message was heard loud and clear. The team responded by actually being more transparent, tweeting out that their player was hurt and for how long they expected him to be out for.

https://twitter.com/x/status/737012787596144642

Now let's see if they keep it up. Will I boo if they try to pull wool over our eyes again? Absolutely. I know it affects the players, but I'd rather lose a game, or have a shit season than let the team know this behavior is acceptable going forward. We're in the formative years of this club and the culture surrounding the club. I fully recognize booing sucks, but sometimes it's the only tool we have to make ourselves heard (literally), and draw attention to a situation. You have to look no further than the dozen articles written in response to it.

 

[Ulrich]

What time of day do you make your best decisions?
Will you play soccer better tomorrow if you eat pasta or chicken soup today?
What is priming?

Every day we are all subject to thousands of experiential inputs that influence our behavior at an unconscious level. This article makes the good point that, "Athletes don’t just do; they think. Decisions have to be made in an instant."

For example, stress (you know, like, the feeling one might have from being booed) reduces people's ability to see risk in their decision making. Now when it comes to soccer, where do we want players to see risk? On defense.

Of course players are going to say the booing doesn't get to them. And at a conscious level they may be right. But if you believe that nothing happens to a player's brain when he is booed vs. cheered you are rejecting much of the entire fields of psychology and neuroscience. And for that matter, why the hell are you cheering for other players?

If your boos make no difference, why should your cheers?

And if you really still need another reason, imagine this conversation.

Villa: I love it. Great city. Fun league. You should totally come over.
Torres: I notice you didn't mention the fans.
Villa: Yeah. Well. If that's important to you, Portland is great. SKC too.
Torres: And NYC?
Villa: Well ... they like me, but you better hope you don't pull a hamstring.

If you think players don't notice this stuff, you're nuts. And I want NYCFC to be a premier destination.

Go to any stadium in Europe or South America and you'll hear boos from the home fans at some point during the season. It happens everywhere and teams play. Hell, even the US MNT for the longest time played home matches with more hostile booing fans than friendly ones, and their home record was pretty damn solid.

High level athletes are so focused on the game itself, due to tunnel vision, that they lose track of whats happening around them - they're focused on what's happening on the field, not in the stands. If booing truly did affect them in a detrimental way, no team would ever be able to play well away from home as they're constantly being jeered by hostile fans - but time and again, we see teams fare well away (provided that travel isn't bad and the team's squad is of equal or better strength than the opposition).

Addressing the links you posted.... I'd argue that Priming is by far more a function of the training outside of competition/games than the games themselves - training sessions are where the repetitive play comes in with stimulating the body's systems to react in certain ways. When I marathon train, the preparation is all done during the weekly sessions, ones that break down the different stimuli needed on race day into workouts that can be focused on and over-stimulated; any preparatory races are only used as validation of the training and not as an actual training stimuli. I'd argue soccer is the same - the games validate the body's training, not the other way around.

I'd also argue that the second link about the Psychology of Sports is misleading and vague as the blog mentions the pitfalls of jeering with regard to Baseball pitchers & golf, but then admits it has no affect on Basketball players shooting free throws. I'd argue that the flaw in the blog, that seems so obvious it's almost intellectually criminal for them to not have made the connection, is that both golf and baseball are silent sports whereas basketball is a noisy sport (constant mic announcements, organ music, and non-stop cheering). Soccer is most definitely not a silent sport and is akin to basketball (if not even louder), and as such soccer players would be able to shut out outside noise, both cheering and jeering.

 

[Vallos]

Does booing affect players? Perhaps on some level. Does it affect their level of play? I don't think so. Take for instance this quote from Allen Iverson:

“It's unfair because the people booing, I believe, wouldn't want to have their child booed. Fans don't understand our lives and what we go through. They don't look at us as humans. We love the fans because they support and love the game, but at the same time it hurts when they turn their back on us.”

Clearly, it affected him, but he entered the the Hall of Fame regardless.

 

[gbservis]

FIFY

Villa: I love it. Great city. Fun league. You should totally come over.
Torres: I notice you didn't mention the fans.
Villa: Yeah. Well. If that's important to you, Portland is great. SKC too.
Torres: And NYC?
Villa: As long as you show up when you say you are coming, are honest with the fans, and don't start out with a shady PR disaster that drags on for months they will love you, just like they love me. It's really not hard, just don't do what Lampard did and you will be fine.

All joking aside I think it's a bit of a stretch to take phycological concepts developed by studying "typical" people and apply them to hyper competitive, ultra focused, elite athletes in the middle of competition. These guys don't have the mental make up of a typical person and if they are that affected by boos they wouldn't have made it to this level.

I never reached the level of these guys but as someone who played D1 sports in college, anecdotally I can say that I hardly noticed cheers vs boos. It's all just background noise that you are too focused to be aware of. If you do occasionally notice the fans during a break in the action it's all just motivation be it cheers hyping you up or boos that you are motivated to shut up and prove wrong. The only thing I ever found unsettling was when the noise level in the stadium dropped drastically. When whole stadium gets quiet it's noticeable because the sounds on the field of play that are typically somewhat muted by the background noise feel strangely amplified due to it's sudden absence. For that reason I buy into the idea you have been advocating for that it matters for fans to stay the full 90' and to keep making noise the whole time even when we are down. I can't buy into the idea that the players are aware of the boos and even affected by them during the flow of the game.

 

[FootyLovin]

Re: fans boo everywhere. Fair enough.

Re: all above arguments that psychology doesn't apply to pro athletes. SMH.

#mobilepost

 

[Ulrich]

Re: fans boo everywhere. Fair enough.

Re: all above arguments that psychology doesn't apply to pro athletes. SMH.

#mobilepost

Your SMH is disingenuous and you know it. Nobody has said psychology doesn't apply to pro athletes - there's an entire subset in the profession/science of psychology for sports psychologists, but it's focus is all encompassing from not having confidence, to losing focus, to gaining a killer instinct, etc. Dealing with Crowd noise is probably part of it too. But what most posters (gbservis & Vallos & I) have discussed, and even the second article you posted, is that athletes tune the noise out. And that's different than saying psychology doesn't apply.

I have no problem agreeing that we disagree on the subject, but to be as dismissive to the posters that engaged with you in this conversation with a simple SMH elicites the same SMH as my reaction.