Australia
Argentina 
Austria 
Brazil 
Canada 
Germany 
Ireland 
Italy 
Malaysia 
Mexico 
New Zealand 
Poland 
South Africa 
United Kingdom 
United States When fans want to lose: 'Every time we attacked, we booed our own players'
Tottenham Hotspur fans have been presented with a strange moral dilemma.
Their hopes of finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League are still just about alive following Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Burnley. With two games left to play, they are five points behind Aston Villa, who drew 3-3 with Liverpool on Monday evening. Spurs face already relegated Sheffield United on the final day, while at the same time Villa will take on in-form Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
The problem? Tottenham’s game in hand this evening is at home against title-chasing Manchester City. Spurs boast a good recent record against Pep Guardiola’s side, who they have beaten at home in each of the last four Premier League seasons without conceding a goal, so they should have more reason than most to be confident when facing the reigning champions.
But things aren’t quite so straightforward. If Man City drop points tonight, then Tottenham’s bitter north London rivals Arsenal will be handed the advantage in the title race.
Would Arsenal winning the title be an acceptable consequence of Spurs qualifying for the Champions League? Or do the fans want their own team to roll over and deny Arsenal a first league title in 20 years?
It’s a moral dilemma that appears to have split fans. But this isn’t the first time such a situation has arisen…
The concept of fans wanting their own team to lose may be slightly more familiar to followers of US sports. Due to the closed league system, where there is no fear of relegation, it can be advantageous for teams to finish towards the bottom of the table. For example, teams that fail to qualify for the National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs participate in a lottery system to see who gets the first pick of the best college players in the draft.
The Philadelphia 76ers won less than 20 of their 82 regular season games for three consecutive years between 2013 and 2016. However, it helped them to select Joel Embiid (No 3), Jahlil Okafor (No 3), Ben Simmons (No 1) and Markelle Fultz (No 1) high up in the draft. Embiid is the face of the franchise and Simmons became a three-time NBA All-Star before joining the Brooklyn Nets in 2022. Okafor struggled to make an impact and now plays in Puerto Rico while Fultz’s career has been hampered by injuries.
This tactic, which is known as ‘tanking,’ enabled the 76ers to become title contenders and they finished first in the Eastern Conference during the 2020-21 season but have not won a championship in over 40 years.
Things are a little bit different for Spurs fans — their focus is more on the downfall of their rivals than their own potential gain. Ange Postecoglou’s debut season with Tottenham has proven largely enjoyable for fans, many of whom have talked about a better sense of connection between them and the team, but neighbours Arsenal lifting the Premier League trophy at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday would represent an especially bitter ending.
Spurs have been in this predicament before. On the final day of the 1998-99 season, they travelled to Old Trafford to face a Manchester United side who started the day one point ahead of Arsenal, who needed a favour from their rivals to have any chance of retaining their title.
Tottenham’s manager George Graham — a former Arsenal player and manager — was relaxed ahead of the game, even joking that 5ft 4in winger Jose Dominguez would start the game in goal.
In the 24th minute, Les Ferdinand flicked the ball with the outside of his right boot over United’s goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel to give the visitors — firmly entrenched in midtable — an unlikely lead.
“I was just thinking, ‘This could go down in history as the worst move of my career’,” Ferdinand told The Athletic in 2020. “It was definitely running through my mind. I remember scoring that goal and there being quite a subdued reaction. That then prompted my celebrations to be quite subdued. I wasn’t one to go crazy anyway.
“My season had been really interrupted by injuries and because of that I’d been in and out the team. I remember scoring the goal and thinking this would sum up my season and my time at Tottenham so far — I could score the goal that wins the title for Arsenal. I was told later my name was being sung at Highbury.”
A potential disaster for Ferdinand was averted when David Beckham equalised before half-time and then Andy Cole gave United the lead in the 47th minute. Nwankwo Kanu’s strike gave Arsenal a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa, but at no stage during the day had they topped the table. Tottenham finished 11th, with the fans just content their team hadn’t helped Arsenal to the title, with their own place in Europe already secure having won the League Cup.
GO DEEPER
Rebooted: The day Spurs and Les Ferdinand almost gifted Arsenal the title
The away end had a similar mindset when Portsmouth travelled to West Bromwich Albion on the final day of the 2004-05 season. Portsmouth had secured safety but West Brom were still desperately trying to escape the bottom three and become the first side to be bottom of the Premier League at Christmas but still avoid relegation.
West Brom needed to win and hope Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Southampton — Portsmouth’s south-coast neighbours — all dropped points. To add a little more drama to the mix, Southampton were managed by Harry Redknapp, who had earlier that season quit Portsmouth and ended up taking over at St Mary’s a little over two weeks later, taking his trusted assistant Jim Smith with him.
Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach Gary O’Neil started for Portsmouth at The Hawthorns on that fateful day. “That match was unique for the noise and things that you could hear while you were playing — it’s not often that you make a good tackle and got booed by your own fans,” O’Neil tells The Athletic.
“When you’re in the crowd you can worry about your rivals, but on the pitch we were desperate to beat West Brom. It never filters through to the team. Tottenham’s players will be keen to help themselves so I don’t think there’s too much in it, but it is a strange experience when you can hear your fans cheering against you. You just have to understand why.”
In the event, West Brom won 2-0 and pulled off ‘The Great Escape.’ Southampton lost to Manchester United which meant they dropped out of the top flight for the first time in 27 years, much to the delight of Portsmouth fans.
“All we wanted from that game was for Southampton to go down,” says Portsmouth fan Wayne Denton, 69, who was at West Brom that day. “It was a big day for us because of the rivalry between the two cities, not just the two football teams. We didn’t mind losing at all. We were more than happy and every time we were attacking, our fans were booing our players and telling them to go back and don’t shoot. It was a weird experience. We went crazy when West Brom scored.
“Before the game, the fans were all mixing and afterwards it was the same. They kept coming up to us, slapping us on the back because we got behind West Brom the whole game. It was a strange feeling because you never usually want your team to lose. But in a situation like that, if you ask me again would I want us to lose, absolutely.
“I know some guys went into London to Trafalgar Square and celebrated because they were so pleased.
“I’ve been watching Portsmouth for 55 years and in that time never wanted them to lose any other game. You would be lucky to find one Portsmouth fan at The Hawthorns who wanted to win.”
On the final weekend of the 1994-95 campaign, Liverpool hosted Blackburn Rovers at Anfield. Blackburn, managed by legendary former Liverpool player and coach Kenny Dalglish, had a two-point lead at the top of the table and would be crowned champions if Manchester United failed to beat West Ham.
Alan Shearer gave Blackburn the lead after 20 minutes but John Barnes equalised in the second half. With seconds left on the clock, Jamie Redknapp curled a free kick into the top corner at the Anfield Road end which made both sets of supporters feel queasy.
“When I was stood over the free kick, it just felt right and I caught it beautifully,” Redknapp told The Athletic last year. “Once I scored, you could see my reaction. I thought: ‘Oh no, what have I done here? I’ve just given the title to Man United!’ I thought the fans would never forgive me.
“It was a double whammy for me with my dad manager of West Ham at the time. We heard they were hanging on against United. We were so keen for United not to win the league, but we also wanted to play well and win our last game of the season.”
Redknapp’s long-range effort secured Liverpool a 2-1 victory and, after an anxious wait, everybody in the stadium learned that Alex Ferguson’s side had drawn 1-1 with West Ham.
“Kenny is a god to all of us,” Redknapp said. “He had signed me for Liverpool and I could see all the emotion he was going through on the touchline. There were no mobile phones in those days. I could see all the Blackburn fans in the Anfield Road end looking anxious with their radios to their ears.
“I wanted Kenny to win the league. Blackburn deserved it. They had been the best team. Blackburn were champions, we won the game — it all worked out perfectly.”
Fans might have conflicting feelings about the result they want, but does the thought of purposefully losing or underperforming ever enter a player’s mind?
“There isn’t a player I know whose mentality is to go out and lose a game,” Ferdinand said. “You want to win every game, so there was no talk in the dressing room beforehand that, ‘Oh, Arsenal might win the title if we win today’.”
For his part, Postecoglou is of a similar mindset as he prepares his Spurs team to face Manchester City.
“I’d hate to think that anyone will think we’ll go out there (to do) anything other than trying to measure ourselves against a top team and maybe win a game of football that’s consequential,” he said in his pre-match press conference. “How are we ever going to become a team that wins things if in the big games we shy away from it?”
Whatever happens on the pitch tonight, it promises to be a strange atmosphere in the stands.
GO DEEPER
Have we have finally found the issue on which Ange Postecoglou and Spurs fans disagree?
(Top photo: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
