🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't worry locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.