For football fans, sometimes schadenfreude is the only thing they have left. Last season Man Utd were the last team standing offering opposing fans the succour of “Things might be bad for us, but it could be worse, we could be United fans…”. On Sunday, the prime time kickoff was a renewal of a rivalry that powered the Premier League through through late 90s and early 00s. But the biggest game of the opening weekend has had its status reduced to the ‘misery Derby’ – a match between two teams whose fanbases seem among the most discontent, and who provide the greatest amount of that sweet sweet schadenfreude for the other 18 teams.

On the face of it, there are plenty of teams worse off. Arsenal have had finished second in the league three seasons a row – a run that most other teams would be desperate to enjoy. Man Utd still boast arguably the world’s biggest football brand and have just enough hundreds of millions to completely retool their forward line, when other teams are still tripping over themselves trying to purchase one (or in some cases even just hold onto their existing players).

So why is it that Arsenal and Man Utd provide so much glee to other fans?

For many, it will be that, despite recent trophies and high finishes, both teams have fallen from the position of dominance that their shared ownership of the Premier League amounted to during some of the peak years of Premier League popularity. Fergie v Wenger, pizza gate, that Van Nistelrooy penalty, Ryan Giggs chest hair – all memorable moments that punctuated an era that was hugely enjoyable as an epic duel, but also all moments that other fans watched on enviously, a hanger on at a party wishing they understood the in joke that the two best friends are laughing about.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and Arsenal and Man Utd’s matches are still regularly entertaining fans everywhere. But gone are the days when the titanic clashes would no doubt determine the destination of the Premier League trophy – instead, the winner is merely given a week’s respite from ridicule in the press and group chats around the country. Arsenal’s status as the eternal bridesmaid of the last few years has reinforced the growing narrative that while they may have been able to claim that North London belongs to them, they may also be earning greater rights to the label of being the ultimate ‘bottlers’ – in recent years Arsenal have managed to be more Spursy than Spurs.

And if you head up North, their erstwhile 90s rivals have now similarly been able to claim a crown that until recently was reserved for their fiercest historical rivals. Up until their COVID league title, Liverpool were the club most commonly thrown out by fans as having ideas above their station – relying on historical achievements by players long ago put out to pasture on the MOTD sofa as reason for remaining among the ‘big boys’ in the Premier League.

We are now seven managers into the post-Fergie era. Whilst that previous time could be tracked by records being ticked off that underlined their unparalleled success, it is rare that the Sky Sports graphics department is lacking in a table or graph to find new and interesting ways to present the recent futility on the red side of Manchester – be it the millions of pounds wasted, the billions of pounds of debt or the ever more dramatic number of losses being racked up under the latest managerial messiah parachuted in to fix the leaks at Old Trafford. The ground itself has become the starkest of all metaphors for the state of the club – what was once magnificent, a fortress and the envy of all other clubs, is now literally crumbling, a cauldron of pressure for young players with outsized expectations and woefully inadequate when compared with the modern masterpieces being developed elsewhere.

The disparity between their recent historical positions and their current situations, or in Arsenal’s case, the sky-high expectations that “this is the year they’ll make it” and their inevitable falling short are made all the more delicious for opposing fans by the ultra modern phenomenon of the football influencers. For Arsenal it’s Arsenal Fan TV, for Man U it’s Mark Goldbridge and United We Stand – both provide a noisy public voice of our most annoying football supporting mate – the one who made us irrationally hate a team that we otherwise had no real strong feelings for.

Footballing schadenfreude had its “Jump the Shark” moment at the end of the season before last, when a huge amount of Tottenham fans willed their team to lose a game to Man City, as it would all but hand the title to them over Arsenal. The footballing world raised up in protest, with opposing fans venting their incredulity, unable to believe that a fan would root against their own team, and proudly exclaiming that they would NEVER do the same were they in that position. I guarantee that if those same fans were subjected to truth serum if and when their team were in the same position, all would force their lips shut before eventually blurting out that they would be the ones clenching their fist quietly the moment the opposing goalkeeper made the match saving one-on-one save to preserve the defeat for their team.

It’s about time that as a collective we not only accept, but embrace the beauty of the irrationality of football. No doubt every fan has reached a moment when they claim that they’re “done” with their chosen team and refuse to watch the televised game. No doubt we’ve all reached the same moment of clarity about the degree of irrational addiction we have when we realise find ourselves raising our eyebrows upon checking the live text updates, see that maybe our team isn’t as fucking hopeless as we suspected, and that before we know it we’ve got the game on, feel our pulse racing and admit to ourselves we’re never really going to give it up.

Thank you to Arsenal and to Man Utd, but also to every other team – at one point or another, you’ve been that kernel of hope for a forlorn fan on a weekend of despair. We may not like admitting it, but the primal, tribal feelings that other fans misery drags out of us strikes to the core of why football is a beautiful and unrelenting passion – why it’s not just a hobby, but a brilliant and life affirming obsession.