Schadenfreude (n): a German word for the feeling of pleasure or satisfaction when something bad happens to someone else.
Come on, we’re all a bit guilty of this sometimes aren’t we?
Even if you’re such a decent person in life that you’ve never indulged even a bit, I bet everyone reading this regularly indulges in the above practice as a football supporter.
I’d double down on this bet that a good 99% of people reading this will have experienced Schadenfreude at the plight of Tottenham Hotspur this season. Keen for another dose as we enter the final days with the erstwhile Super League enthusiasts still a contender for the drop.
In fact, I’d go as far to say that the only people who don’t hold this view are Spurs fans, as well as supporters who have a particular issue with West Ham, either from personal experience or due to a closer rivalry such as Millwall.
The likelihood of this has reduced over the weekend unfortunately, as lucky Arsenal, miserable VAR decisions and the width of a crossbar, saw Tottenham gain a point on the Hammers.
As stated elsewhere, their superior goal difference means that, were Newcastle United to win on Sunday, Spurs would need only a point from two remaining games to stay up. All but game over.
Here’s where the quandary comes up.
What people may not realise is that preferring Spurs to go down is, from a Newcastle perspective, far more than just a case of Schadenfreude. Apologies, but once again I’m going to talk about money.
In this year’s Deloitte football money league, Spurs were 9th in the world, with total revenues of €672.6m (at today’s exchange rates £583.3m) a considerable gap on 17th placed Newcastle who clocked a mere €398.4m (also at today’s exchange rates £345.5m).
Without bleating on about PSR or SCR rules, that fundamentally means they have an additional £237.8m to play with each year. Newcastle have capacity to erode that gap as the slow recovery from Ashley’s commercial damage continues year-on-year, but the bottom line is that Tottenham will remain much wealthier for the foreseeable, in all likelihood until a new stadium is up and running on Tyneside.
In real terms this means that they can afford to spend bigger on transfers and, crucially, on wages. I have to laugh when I read stuff about players supposedly wanting to live in London, like 22 year olds from Brazil are mad for the musical theatre experiences of the West End or a stroll around the British Museum. If someone has a straight choice between Tottenham and Newcastle this summer and he chooses them, the biggest driving factor will be the excess money that can be pushed at both player and agent. Spurs have a surplus of waste that they need to deal with, but both clubs are in need of a fairly extensive summer rebuild and it’s fair to say we may be shopping in a similar aisle.
For me, this has created a paradox. Elliot Anderson’s late equaliser for Forest has as good as ended any hope of slithering into an ill-deserved European place (in spite of the historically low bar set to achieve this). Our pathetic level of ambition for this remaining pair of matches is, for me, to attempt to finish above Sunderland and to claw a few quid in prize money from a slightly higher league position.
Neither of these things are as big a prize as the prospect of flushing Spurs, so unfortunately there is only one conclusion. The best result in the long term for Newcastle United on Sunday is for West Ham to win. Not for spite, or masochism, for the cold hard, cash-driven tragedy that modern football has become.
I’m sure there will be hand wringing in the comments that wanting Newcastle United to lose is the worst thing you can possibly do.
Come the day I am equally sure I won’t be able to actively pursue this. When Newcastle get a corner I’ll be itching for Dan Burn to head it in and I’ll celebrate each goal in Yoane Wissa’s unlikely hat-trick. However, it sticks in the throat that in a season where United couldn’t motivate themselves to beat the tin pots of Bournemouth and Brentford, with a handful of away spectators celebrating in level seven, or the mackems, subjecting us to the gleeful gloatings of the unwashed hordes up there, they might finally find their groove to sicken an army of Hammers occupying those seats. After six months of miserable weekends, it would be very Newcastle to step up when it matters least.
There is of course, integrity.
I don’t expect Newcastle to consciously fail to try in a match and I’d be furious if they did. Everton did a similar dirty on us against Sunderland in 2016 and I’ll never forgive them and much as Spurs’ demise would be welcome, we owe them that.
But in a year where the team has specialised in letting us and themselves down when the clock hits 85 minutes, one last show before a summer reboot would be far from the end of the world, and for reasons way beyond Schadenfreude.