Benjamin Sesko: Another Casualty of Soccer's Unforgiving Cycle of Opinions and Internet Jokes

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing 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: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.