CO-WORKER bigging up the thrill of watching last night’s match live in their local when you suspect they only saw the score when they woke up? Catch them out:
They’re not hungover
Last night’s game has already become the Woodstock of football, with everyone claiming to have been ten pints deep in the pub when the final whistle went. Which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny if your colleague is in, lively and responding to emails in less than four hours. Real fans are working from home, except not actually. Like your boss.
Their nerves aren’t shot
Even remembering the match feels like you’re at risk of undoing it when you watched every agonising minute live. Meanwhile liars discuss Bellingham’s swift one-two of goals and Kane’s penalty with the cool detachment of a Wikipedia article. If your colleague isn’t still trembling and dripping with sweat they’re either a fraud or secretly into Wimbledon.
They’re too well-rested
Where are the bags under their eyes? The yawns? The inability to understand simple sentences? These are the hard-won trophies of people who bravely went to the pub a bit later than they usually would, making them this generation’s war heroes and those who got eight hours of sleep deserters who should face a firing squad.
They’ve never mentioned football before
If they’ve historically been actively disinterested in football, their sudden enthusiasm is suspect. They don’t really care that last night was a humiliation for Mexico on home turf. They don’t remember the Hand of God goal. They just want to feel part of something bigger and to establish a human connection with colleagues. Pathetic, shameful behaviour.
They are doing their job
Meeting the minimal acceptable working standards is a dead giveaway. Real fans can barely open their laptops to put their out-of-office on. Either that or your co-worker does a mindless, unimportant job that a trained chimp could do, in which case they may indeed have seen the game.
