A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Emotional Patterns in Football Fan Discourse: Social Media Reactions to Spanish La Liga Matches (April 2025)

Abstract

Social media has completely changed how fans talk about and experience football today. This study examined Facebook comments on football events, focusing specifically on the Spanish La Liga, to understand how fans expressed emotions and interacted with their favorite teams. We looked at posts from active football pages, including Fabrizio Romano (20M followers), Real Madrid C.F (131M followers), FC Barcelona - Barca Insider (533K followers), Viva Barca (6.7M followers), and The Nation of Blaugrana (556K followers). The study analyzed fan reactions around four key matches, including Real Madrid 1: Atlántico Bilbao 0, Barcelona 4: Celta Vigo 3, Getafe 0: Real Madrid 1, and Leganés 0: Barcelona 1. Comments were selected based on engagement, relevance to match events, and emotional depth, capturing the full range of intense, humorous, sarcastic, and superstitious expressions fans used to process outcomes. The data were gathered during the April 2025 La Liga matches, focusing on the before and after match comments. A qualitative approach using thematic analysis was employed to identify recurring patterns in fans' posts, revealing how emotions are expressed through words, emojis, punctuations, and humor. The study highlighted how wins and losses trigger celebratory, critical, anxious, and rivalry reactions, showing the complexity of fan engagement. By examining language and emotional content, this study demonstrated the strong personal and social connections fans had with their teams, emphasizing how social media transformed football into a space for intense emotional experience and identity expression.