If I asked you to describe how PSG striker Kylian Mbappé celebrates most of his goals,
you'd tell me, that he folds his arms in front of his chest,
while his hands disappear under his armpits.
So joy over a goal always looks the same on Kilian Mbappé.
Most players have their own expressions.
This is how joy looks on Serge Gnabry,
this is how it looks on Harry Kane,
this is how it looks on Sam Kerr
and who doesn't know this guy's version?
If you take away celebrations in football, you take large parts of footballers' identities with them,
and the joy. But is it really just about joy?
Goal celebrations used to be of little interest in the old days.
People didn't come to see them at all.
They were frequently cut off,
and when a celebration was caught on camera
it often looked like this: reserved.
And if it wasn't, then it was still short and the players got on with the game quickly.
The purpose of football was to score
and therefore it was then to return
to the middle of the pitch and then start the game and score again.
It wasn't to go and stand in front of a camera
and celebrate a particular style of celebration.
It wouldn't have made sense to do that.
Today you don't even get the chance to look away.
They don't just show the celebration, they show it many times over.
Again, and again, and again and in Slomo.
And this is just an ordinary Bundesliga game.
Do you ever ask yourself: What happened?
Between here and there?
Maybe it helps to aks: Why do footballers celebrate at all?
Whether you're playing at the beach or at the World Cup.
Well, that's easy: Joy!
You want to score a goal.
And when you do it: You're happy!
An immense feeling of happiness!
But look at these guys!
Didn't look too orgasmic last century.
They were very conservative, they were very masculine,
there were no real emotion.
Goalscoring in the 50s and early 1960s was a reaction.
It was something people were doing as they had scored.
It wasn't a dramatic reaction it was an understated reaction.
This joy is pure reflex,
and reflexes cannot be influenced.
But cheering like this is not a reflex
or like this
this
or this
Imagine this back in 1960.
Any idea how supporters then would have reacted to a Ronaldo Siu?
Probably with distain. You know, what the hell are you doing?
You know, this doesn't make any sense.
They've not lived that spectacle in the same way.
They had no access to players in terms of the post goal moment.
A yoga session on the pitch would have made everyone, even your teammates, very suspicious.
Why? Because before the age of Self-discovery...
...it was all about the group!
It wasn't individuality that was chic, but rather being in sync.
If you think about a Ford factory in the 1940s, in the 1950s,
you know, a Ford factory is sort of premised upon this large scale method of production.
You know, it's a standardized product.
It's a car being produced for mass consumption.
And I think the celebrations themselves in the games were quite reflective of that.
Back than a player would never see his name on a jersey,
and he'd never EVER think of celebrating by himself like this.
That's why every German to this date remembers Helmut Rahn's 1954 World Cup winner
AND the reporter cheering.
But no one can tell how Helmut Rahn cheered.
No one cared.
So...what happened?
This happened!
Television, rock n roll and cult of personalty rattled the s**t out of conformity.
People became individuals and athletes became bigger than their sports.
I AM THE GREATEST!
Footballers, too, were singled out as stars, almost detached from their team.
"Waiting to receive was mighty Best! He simply walked the ball into the net."
The attention made them self aware.
The individual stood out from the team,
and the most individual moment was when he scored a goal.
The 1970 World Cup was the first where matches from Latin America
were shown live and in color on European television.
That could explain one of the most iconic goal celebrations to date.
Pele's cheer was definitely more dramatic than any from his first World Cup in 1958.
People are watching it.
People get to see these goals, goals, goals, goals scored.
And therefore the players recognize that, they recognize that there's an audience.
There's an audience to perform for.
Like at the opera.
Over the years, players' goal celebration became a thing
and the scream of joy increasingly became the scream of an individual.
Players were recognized from their celebrations.
And the more outlandishly they celebrated the more famous they became.
Would Roger Milla have become an international star
if he hadn't danced with the corner flag after each goal after each goal?
Then in the 90s goal celebration became...
...very reflexive, very self-reflective, very pastiche, very sort of tongue-in-cheek,
very, very much around parody and things like that, you know, very postmodern really.
So they become almost past the point of being about action.
They become like a post action.
You know, they're not necessarily produced by the event.
Players soon picked their signature celebrations.
Early on, raising an arm would do.
Still a bit boring.
Didn't get boring to me the 422nd time
But soon gestures like thumb sucking stopped looking weird.
Goal celebrations started to be a part of a players' identity,
an individual exclamation mark, rejecting the conformity of the past.
Suddenly goal celebrations had purposes - the reaction became an action.
Players used them as a means of communication.
Examples?
Jürgen Klinsmann started to take the mickey out of people naming him a "diver" by...
diving after each goal.
Robbie Fowler reacted to rumours of alleged drug use by pretending to snort the goal line,
and this is how Peter Crouch silenced his critics.
And who says he is robotic?
That can be quite an empowering thing for an individual to respond to the critics.
We shouldn't understate it.
Goalscorers have always had the space in which to communicate,
communicate important political messages,
communicate important personal messages.
communicate important collective messages on part of the team.
Goal celebrations came to serve so many different purposes, and not all of them were good.
Celebrations changed forever!
Even on football's most popular video game FIFA. 1993 was the last year you would
see the conventional cheer of joy.
After that...the somersault
the slide
the plane
the point
The game was reflecting reality, and reality reflected the video game.
The celebration became part of modern pop culture.
How could all these young footballers growing up watching this
ever think that NOT going crazy was an option after a goal?
Gareth Bale, he played for Tottenham Hotspur and then Real Madrid,
at one point, was actually trying to get the intellectual property rights for his own celebration.
And that shows you how individual we become, right?
Today, the sports pages are filled with talk about footballers' celebrating.
Players have to explain why they do what they do.
Like when my colleague Kres asked Serge Gnabry where he got his 'cooking' gesture.
I was having a conversation before the game with my friend.
And he was like, you need to score, and when you score...
I think maybe James Harden around that time had been doing that, and he was like...that was so fire.
You got to do that when you score.
And I hope there is no more questions about this now.
Sometimes you start to wonder which is more important these days...
The goal or the hoo-haa afterwards?
Lets have a look at Mo Salah post-goal for example.
Purpose 1: Salah reminds us he's the dude who scored.
Purpose 2: He connects with the team, who are all asked by the manager to embrace after goals.
Purpose 3: He connects with the fans and then...
Purpose 4: with God.
And Salah doesn't even have a signature celebration.
Something which has become indispensable for many players today.
Why is that?
Individual players recognize that they are brands.
They have sponsorship deals, so they have to celebrate in a way
which connects the audience with who they are.
And a successful product is not only talked about,
it's also copied, even outside the world of soccer.
Like at the Australian Open in 2022.
They were doing some Ronaldo thing.
Ronaldo does it all the time he scores.
It's more than just a goal celebration.
It's Ronaldo celebrating in such a predictable, inauthentic way.
And that is not something we should just accept.
Because young kids are copying these celebrations.
And when you've got kids who are playing for that
and not for the love of actually playing football and score it and getting something from it.
Kids don't just want to play like Ronaldo, they want to celebrate like him
and become the living meme he is,
a parody of a parody of a parody.
Social media fuels this development.
Everyone has been trying to do this.
Dele Alli's celebration not only went viral, it sparked a challenge and countless discussions.
Does anyone else remember the goal he did this after?
Boy, what a change from here...
...to here.
Footballers have changed since then,
and someone else has changed.
These people have turned into...
You!
You have changed.
Haven't you?
Tell me which celebration you particularly like.