IN her best-selling book ‘Quiet’, Susan Cain dissects Western culture’s bias towards extroversion, where it originated and how it has persisted. In the book, she posits that introverts are often unfairly dismissed as leaders and thinkers with greater primacy given to acts of extroversion in the workplace.
The same is very much true in football. Fans want their managers to rant and rave on the touchline, however implausible the idea that the players can actually hear what they are saying. Extroversion also dominates our ideas around captaincy, particularly in British culture.
Many of us have been reared on the Roy of the Rovers type ideals, where captains bend colleagues and opponents to their will, brows permanently furrowed and fists constantly beating into palms. For Arsenal fans, Tony Adams and Frank McLintock symbolise these ideals and, in doing so, inform our impressions of what a captain should be.
It’s why Roy Keane’s exploits in Turin, Steven Gerrard’s volley against Olympiacos and Tony Adams’ ‘WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?!’ moment against Everton are replayed so fondly. Yet introverted captains are not an exclusively modern phenomena. Bobby Moore was known for his demureness. Even Patrick Vieira, misremembered now as a pointer and shouter, was a quiet, introspective captain who fell into the ‘lead by example’ category.
There'll be no official captain's notes in the Arsenal match programme against Burnley tomorrow. Granit Xhaka will be writing a piece as a "voice from the dressing room".
— James Benge (@jamesbenge) August 16, 2019
Society and culture change and leadership styles change with them. Confrontational leadership styles are now rare in most industries where there is a greater focus on being collaborative and delegating. In the macho, performance environment of football however, many fans fetishise the blood soaked visage of Terry Butcher and the clenched fists of Sergeant Major McLintock.
Against this backdrop, Unai Emery’s ‘captaincy group’ philosophy has unnerved some Arsenal fans. Emery appoints five captains, tapping into the idea of collaborative leadership. Many clubs operate on a similar basis now because characters like Tony Adams, John Terry and Roy Keane are rare and becoming rarer.
Secondly, the idea of one player starting in every game is becoming increasingly outmoded. In the age of squad rotation, the reality is that the armband is shared by necessity. There has also been a shift in how captains are appointed in modern football. Often, the captaincy is awarded with the expectation of what additional responsibility will do for the appointee, rather than his colleagues.
In essence, this is ‘trickle-down’ captaincy. When Emery appointed Mesut Özil as one of his five captains last season, it’s, presumably, not because he thinks Özil is a natural leader, but because being handed the responsibility will make him feel like a senior member of the squad. Subsequently, perhaps, his self-perception alters and he becomes more conscious of the group grooming him into a kind of seniority.
Yet the status the leadership group enjoys can be overstated. The coach wasn’t deterred from dropping Özil, Petr Cech, or Aaron Ramsey last season. Likewise, Laurent Koscielny wasn’t deterred from going on strike this summer despite his primus inter pares position within that cadre.
On this day in 1996, @OfficialVieira joined Arsenal.
He went on to captain The Invincibles and become a club legend pic.twitter.com/71RYeqOkPM
— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 14, 2019
There are signs, however, that the concept of the captaincy role is changing among football fans. If you took a straw poll of Arsenal fans on their choice for the armband this season, Hector Bellerin would probably top it. Bellerin does not fit the ‘traditional’ ideal of captaincy at all. Rather, his popularity is driven by his off-pitch persona.
He is outspoken on subjects such as climate change, gender equality, homophobia and has a passion for fashion design. He has a lot of millennial appeal. This suggests fans are beginning to consider captaincy as something symbolic, as opposed to tangible. Bellerin is considered more of a spokesman and role-model than an on-pitch leader.
Emery has delayed announcing the entirety of his captaincy group until the European transfer window closes. That is very telling. It suggests that he wouldn’t be against selling one or two members of the quintet, which raises the question of their actual value on the playing side.
Granit Xhaka led the team out on the opening day of the season at St. James’ Park but has not yet been confirmed as the club captain. In this weekend’s programme for the Burnley game, Arsenal forewent the captain’s column for the first time in decades, instead opting for Granit Xhaka to write a piece as ‘the voice of the dressing room’, again tapping into the idea of collaboration.
I imagine this is also because Emery is not entirely certain of Xhaka’s place in the team. With Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira, Joe Willock and Dani Ceballos on board Arsenal have the opportunity to inject greater mobility into the engine room. Xhaka could both be appointed club captain this summer and be sold next summer. Given the recent history of the Arsenal armband, this would actually make him the most traditional choice of all.
