It was a big day in the title race.
Arsenal had just beaten Leeds United 4-1, a few hours after Manchester City had briefly closed the gap at the top, defeating Liverpool by the same score.
Mikel Arteta had allowed his players to keep tabs on how City were getting on, so BBC Five Live's Nick Godwin naturally asked Ben White, one of Arsenal's goalscorers on the day and a key player in their title charge, whether he had watched the game.
“I don't watch football so… just focused on the game today,” White said.
White wasn't making a great revelation. He's said several times before that, outside of playing and training, he doesn't really have much interest in football. Take his interview with Sky Sports from last year.
“I didn't ever watch football when I was younger. I still don't now. I just loved the game, I was always playing it, never watching. So I don't know too much about the older generations, but I know (Patrick) Vieira was a very good player. But I don't know the details.”
In an interview alongside Leandro Trossard in February, White was asked what his favourite part of the day was. Trossard's impish, amused look of incredulity told viewers everything they needed to know when White answered “training”, almost certainly with his tongue in cheek.
There is a general assumption among football fans that players must love the game as much as we do, but White is far from alone in being a player who isn't exactly an obsessive.
Most obviously, there is Benoit Assou-Ekotto. The then-Tottenham Hotspur left-back caused something of a stir back in 2010 with an interview he gave to the Guardian in which he said he only regarded football as a job and money was among his primary motivations.
“Yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion,” he said. “I arrive in the morning at the training ground at 10.30 and I start to be professional. I finish at one o'clock and I don't play football afterwards. When I am at work, I do my job 100 per cent. But after, I am like a tourist in London. I have my Oyster card and I take the Tube. I eat.”
Assou-Ekotto clarified the comment when he spoke to The Athletic in 2022 but he did admit that his knowledge of the wider game was, shall we say, a little more limited than you might expect. “When he came to Tottenham, I didn't know who he was,” Assou-Ekotto said, about his former team-mate Rafael van der Vaart. “He is from Madrid? He said hello to everyone in the team and I said hello. I said to one of the players, 'Who is he?'.”
Then there's his one-time competitor for the left-back berth at Spurs, Gareth Bale. The 'Wales, golf, Madrid' thing is old hat now, but it wasn't when, after being asked if he was keeping tabs on Paris Saint-Germain before an upcoming Champions League quarter-final in 2018, he told ESPN: “I don't really watch much football — I'd rather watch the golf to be honest.”
He could share a TV with Carlos Tevez, who said in 2018: “If Barcelona vs Real Madrid is on and on the other channel there's a golf tournament, I watch golf. I've never been a fanatic for watching games. I like to play, to have the ball at my feet.”
Barcelona's Marc-Andre ter Stegen has been one of the best goalkeepers around for some time, but has said he frequently has little idea what the names of his opponents are. Even Gabriel Batistuta, the great goalscorer himself, seemed to prefer playing polo in Argentina to football, once describing it as “just my profession”.
David Batty is often tagged as being a football sceptic, which seems to be broadly based on how he almost never gives interviews, is never seen at his old club Leeds despite living nearby, and was the only player who didn't attend a Blackburn Rovers title-winners reunion a few years ago.
There was also his response to missing a penalty at the 1998 World Cup: “As soon as we got in the changing rooms after the shootout, I was looking forward to getting home and seeing my kids — so football didn't matter.” Is that an ambivalence to the game or a healthy recognition of priorities?
David Batty with Gareth Southgate on England duty in 1999. One became the England manager, the other wasn't that interested (Photo: Steve Mitchell/EMPICS via Getty Images)
The Athletic asked several current and former players and managers if they had ever played alongside someone who wasn't exactly a football obsessive. Gael Givet, the former Blackburn and France defender, was mentioned as being someone who never engaged in any sort of football talk and frequently asked who his team was playing next. Curtis Woodhouse was another name that came up, which isn't a massive surprise as he flitted between football and boxing in the latter part of his career.
Interestingly, Paul Scholes and Scott Parker were mentioned, whether accurate or not, among those who wouldn't watch or talk about the game much during their playing careers, which is slightly surprising given the former is now a regular TV pundit and the latter is a manager.
Finally, one former colleague of Marko Arnautovic cited him as being among the group who didn't really care about the sport, but added the caveat that it wasn't always clear whether the Austrian's aloofness was because he hated football, or because he was “just a complete balloon”.
On the flip side, many of those contacted couldn't come up with an example of their own, and indeed were sceptical that anyone could reach a decent level without a deep love of the game. The theory among many is that it takes such drive and commitment to reach the top, you have to have a passion for what you're doing.
But does it matter? Does it make a difference if a footballer isn't a student of the game? Most of the names we have mentioned in this piece were top-level footballers, internationals with scores of caps, titles and major tournaments to their names. We know that many players are football obsessives, but surely we also know that this is their job, and some will treat it as most of us treat our jobs.
Bobby Zamora is another player who, during an interview in 2012, said he would rather do other things with his time when he's away from the game. He caught quite a bit of heat for his openness, in particular from Tony Cascarino, who wrote in his newspaper column that Zamora should “hang up his boots” if his “heart's not in it”.
Bobby Zamora showing his passion after scoring for West Ham against Blackburn in 2007 (Photo: Ross Kinnaird via Getty Images)
“I basically just said I don't watch football 24/7 like everyone else,” Zamora explains to The Athletic now. “It's just constant. Anywhere you go, someone wants to talk to you about football. It's just non-stop. The way I put it, if you're a painter and decorator, when you get home from work you're not going to sit down and watch Changing Rooms. It's not that I didn't like football, it's just that I wouldn't be watching, say, Burnley vs Reading.”
It makes sense. Everyone needs to keep some degree of distance between themselves and their job. Footballers need a work/life balance too. If you spend your working hours with your head in the game, and you have to talk about it when someone sticks a microphone in your face, and if you nip to Tesco someone is pestering you about football, you can understand if a player isn't fussed about watching it.
That's certainly the way that White seems to think about it. “Football is so intense,” he told Sky Sports. “You come in every day giving 100 per cent. All I want to do is go home and not think about it, then come in in the morning fresh and ready to give 100 per cent again. I watch myself for analytical reasons. I watch England, maybe, but I'm always busy doing something. I wouldn't just sit down and watch a game.”
White is known to be one of the most studious players at Arsenal when it comes to watching clips of his play, absorbing the relevant statistics and so forth, and to say the least he is doing his job on the field well this season. And all while playing in an unfamiliar position.
“I totally understand where Ben is coming from,” says Zamora. “I would just look at the centre-halves I was playing against at the weekend, what are their strengths and weaknesses, that's what I need to know. Who are you up against and how can you come out on top?”
Could it even be an advantage for someone not to really watch football, when it doesn't directly involve them? White still loves playing football, and shows his emotions while on the pitch, but because he takes a colder approach to his preparation, it might be that he is able to make more rational decisions.
“It's even more so in this day and age with social media,” says Zamora. “There's not a moment when some aspect of football doesn't come up. It's just a case of separating yourself.”
It's often easy for us to forget that we are simply watching people do their jobs. Some players be as obsessed and consumed by it as we are, but maybe we shouldn't be surprised when someone isn't.