Last season is dead, long live next season!

Players finally go into their summer break after a very long season with their clubs and countries. Some will be raring to go and counting the days until pre-season and others will be totally relieved that they can have a break from the game.

Obviously there are many young players across Europe who still have the under twenty-one European Championships to play in and they will have hardly any break at all.

Hate

Although I fully understand why players need a break in the summer, as a football fan, I absolutely hate it! I am so grateful for the under twenty-one tournament, it will keep me going. I have a vague interest in the British Lions rugby union team in South Africa and I shall pay passing attention to the cricket when the Ashes series between England and Australia gets underway, but it just ain’t the same, is it?

If you are a football supporter there is no other sport that can match the excitement, passion, emotion and beauty of the game. There is nothing you can do during the closed season that can replace what you get from watching, playing, coaching or even talking about the beautiful game.

High hopes

As a supporter of a team the joy or despair of the past season quickly passes as you look forward to next season with eager anticipation. If your team were relegated last season then you will have high hopes of success in the lower league. If your team achieved mid-table mediocrity last season then you will believe that this season will be the big push for the play-offs. If your team failed in the play-offs then next season will see automatic promotion. If your team got promoted then you have the excitement of watching them take on the challenge of a higher league.

Even if your team won just about everything, like Barcelona for example, then you will dream of doing it all again and breaking and setting records in the process.

Disappointed

Of course, most of us will be disappointed with the performance of our teams next season as it is only possible for a few teams to be successful. We have all had years of disappointment but it doesn’t stop us being stupidly and illogically optimistic before the start of each and every season.

Let’s look at my own circumstances. This season the team I manage, Wilton Town, finished eighth in the Wiltshire League Division Two and got knocked out of the two cups in the first and second round. With the club now being partially sponsored by SoccerNews, I truly believe that we can achieve promotion next season and have a good run in one or both of the cups. Is there a logical reason for that belief? Not really, no, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

Play-offs

The team I support is Watford. We battled against relegation from the Championship for most of last season before new manager Brendon Rodgers took us to the relative safety of lower mid-table over the last three or four weeks of the season. Now, with the club in some financial difficulty we may lose some of our better players and our manager has deserted the club. (Despite denying he was leaving and saying that he loved Watford and was totally committed to them, but that’s another story!) What are my hopes for next season? I think we will be in or around the play-offs and may well win promotion to the Premiership. That’s hardly logical is it?

My country is England. It’s not my fault, I was born here! Over the past season we have won all of our World Cup qualifiers in relative style. OK, Kazakhstan and Andorra might not be the best sides in world football but you can only beat what is put in front of you. To be fair, the win in Croatia was an excellent and promising performance. The down side of the England team over the past year was what happened to them when they played against Spain. It is fair to say that Spain may be the best team in the world at the moment but if the England team are to be serious contenders they really should be able to occasionally get the ball when they play against them! How do I think England will do next season? Well, we will qualify for the finals with a 100% record and then at least get to the quarter-finals in South Africa where anything could happen. Obviously, logic and history suggests that England will flatter to deceive and then lose to someone on penalties, but I’m a football fan and logic never comes into it.

I’m bored already. Roll on next season!