Dominic Monaghan: Why I Support Man United
Photo by Mike ReidYou might know Dominic Monaghan as the brave, tobacco-loving hobbit Merry Brandybuck in Lord of the Rings. Or as the brave, Claire-loving rockstar Charlie Pace in Lost. Or, more recently, as the as the crazy-brave, insect-loving host of Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan on BBC America. But we’ve come to know him as one of the most passionate and knowledgeable soccer fans we’ve ever come across and are excited to have him as a regular columnist at Paste Soccer.
Before his first upcoming installment on “Why England Won’t Win the World Cup,” Paste founder and editor-in-chief Josh Jackson talked with Monaghan—who’s currently in Sweden filming the new TV show 100 Code—about all thingsdean football.
Josh Jackson: So Sweden’s not in the World Cup, but they got the best player not in the World Cup this year with Ibrahimovic—maybe one of the best players in the world.
Dominic Monaghan: It came down to like a battle between him and Ronaldo, and I think Ronaldo staked his claim as being a better player than Ibrahimovic at the moment. If you would have said, “Who would you rather see in the World Cup, Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic?” I think most people would probably go Ronaldo, just because his name’s a little bigger. I also think that Ronaldo is a slightly better player. You know, Zlatan kind of turns it on when he wants to. He can win a game whenever he feels like it. But Ronaldo seems to do it all the time. You know, Ronaldo feels like he wants to win and he does. Whereas Zlatan every so often feels like he wants to turn into a great player and show people, but then other games he’s like, “I don’t really care about this game; I’ll just relax.” Ronaldo scored 200 goals in the last four seasons; he’s averaged over 50 goals in a season. Which is fucking insane.
Jackson: That’s crazy.
Monaghan: When you think of professional football player today, the standard they are playing at is ridiculous. It’s hard to score 30 goals in an amateur league, let alone 50 goals in a professional league.
Jackson: So I know your dad’s a Manchester City fan like me. How did you come to love United?
Monaghan: Yeah, what’s the deal with you being a Manchester City fan? How did that happen?
Jackson: Well, I went over to Manchester for the Manchester International Festival, which is such a great, cool arts festival. Rufus Wainwright was debuting his opera there. Tons of great music. So I went over assuming that everybody I met would be a United fan. Pretty much without fail, everybody I was hanging out with was a City fan. They all lived there in Manchester and were big City fans. I loved watching soccer during the World Cup. But you know I’m in Atlanta, and we don’t have a MLS team. I didn’t have any sort of particular fondness for any of the EPL teams. So I just, on a whim, said, “I’ll be a city fan, I’ll start following City.” And they had just finished 12th, so I thought I was picking a middle-of-the-table team. But they had signed some good players. So when I came back, I realized how easy it was to watch these games. I had no idea you could watch pretty much EPL game in the States. So I just started watching religiously and became a bigger and bigger fan every season. Yeah, it’s kind of random, but that my story.
Monaghan: So you guys are in one of your renaissances now, I mean it’s interesting to see that turn around. You guys are certainly experiencing a growth period.
Jackson: Absolutely, it was a good time to jump on the bandwagon. I didn’t really know that was what I was doing.
Monaghan: Yeah, well that’s cool. The reason why I am a Manchester United fan is, obviously both of my parents are from Manchester. So there wasn’t really any debate about supporting Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal. Chelsea, just because one of the major things that happens in England—I would say that probably 90 to 95 percent of the time you support where you come from. It just happens like that. With success it brings in fans from different parts of the world. Which I think is why Manchester City fans throw the comment towards Manchester United that no one in Manchester supports Manchester United. But the way I would throw that comment back is, with them being probably the most well-known club in the world, you’re just going to bring in tons of international fans—that’s just how it works. There is certainly a huge contingent of Manchester United fans in Manchester, which is obviously proven by the almost 79,000 people that go to the game every week. As opposed to Manchester City who fill 50,000 people into the stadium. So, I would just try to put that comment to bed, just because I think it is worthwhile. Trying to nail that to the wall a little bit, because the next thing you’ll get from people is: “So you’re one of the people that supports the biggest team in the world because it’s easy.” But I think obviously in Manchester, there’s a lot of fans.
But I was born in Berlin in the mid 1970s and at that point, in the trials and tribulations of Manchester City and Manchester United, the only team that really traveled that far early was Manchester United. We were struggling to try and contend with the domination of Liverpool in that period. Liverpool dominated the ’70s and the ’80s. It was only in the late ’80s early ’90s that Manchester United had the opportunity to defy Liverpool. You know there were two teams that made their way over to Germany in the newspaper and on the radio, and that was Liverpool and Manchester United. You know, I was a Manchester United fan. You know, certain members of my family are United fans, my mom is a United fan. Obviously my dad a Sky Blue. But the most important thing for my dad when I was growing up, in terms of football, was that we supported the sport. I think my dad probably realized, if we supported Manchester United or Manchester City we would be able to have a nice conversation topic to bring up with my dad. My dad likes to break down the weekly football. Honestly, I think it’s a real blessing because, if I were to call up my dad and constantly agree with him about things that were going on in Manchester City, I think the conversation would be a little less trying than my dad being able to give me a little bit of hassle, me being able to give him a little bit of hassle. Then leading up to big Manchester Derby, or you know, Manchester City vs. Chelsea or Manchester United vs. Liverpool, and we can wind each other up in a good way.