Upon returning to Ireland, a country that both players represented at the youth level, Manchester City‘s Jack Grealish and Arsenal‘s Declan Rice were met with a heated reception marked notably by a poster declaring, “The snakes are back.” Despite the charged atmosphere, both players managed to score in a convincing 2-0 victory for England. However, their performances had differing impacts on their popularity in the Goalden View Popularity Ranking (GVPR) this week.
Declan opened the scoring in the 11th minute of the match but chose not to celebrate, a gesture intended to pay respect to Ireland. In contrast, Jack Grealish celebrated his goal with his usual antics, seemingly unfazed by the context. This great difference in their reactions raises an interesting question: could Declan Rice’s choice to abstain from celebrating be the reason his popularity experienced less of a decline compared to Grealish?
In this week’s GVPR, Declan Rice lost 500 points but managed to maintain his ranking position from the previous week. This could be attributed to the diminishing negativity from Irish fans in light of his respectful decision. However, the shift in sentiment was evident, as English fans expressed disappointment over his choice not to celebrate his goal. Conversely, Jack Grealish faced a more severe backlash, losing twice as many points and dropping three places overall in the rankings. His celebratory antics appeared to further aggravate the Irish fans, leading to a noticeable impact on his popularity.
This scenario teaches us that it’s not just the performance that may affect player popularity but also his actions. Grealish and Rice both scored and played well but Grealish sparked backlash during his celebration while Rice took a respectful approach, ultimately contributing to Grealish losing twice as many points as his international teammate.