for natural reasons. Mating! You can't fault them. It's what they're
programmed to do. But with men? That's a different thing.
We met competition in our nature. And corrupted it. We make reasons
and excuses to compete. All sports are born from an innate desire to
destroy one another. It's basically a pride thing. But with football,
I don't shy away from the drive. Look at it from my perspective. I
don't follow teams. I follow individuals. I follow on the humanity of
the players, studying their temperment, their distress, their change
in behaviour due to pressure and their insane reaction to small
victories, understanding that with enough of them, the complete
victory is within reach. It is a path and like every other path in
life, if you are good to it, it might be good to you.
The persons I feel most connected to are the managers/coaches. They
bear the players in losses, are infuriated by them when they under
perform, are estatic when they shine and treat them on an individual
basis. They are fathers, coaches, leaders, and generals of armies. And
they are heads of families at least 100,000 strong. The most
successful have families beyond borders political, geographical and
social.
My favorite of them is a man called Jose Mourinho. He has a swagger
that is only his. He believes in what he does. He has patiently built
himself up for over 12 years. He has respect for his opponents and
they have the same for him (more often than not, it is given
grudgingly). He literally became my idol and as a practicing christian
(practicing means you haven't gotten it right yet), I couldn not have
the idea of him competing with Christ in my life.
Tonight, when he orchestrated a resounding victory over the reigning
champions of UEFA (who are also the most feared team this season, and
with good reason too), one has to admire him. But I follow him and his
life because, if I had my way, I would be to my field what he is to
football. A guy you either love or hate, but you have to respect him.
I value respect a lot. Especially from self. He is an excellent
pseudo-psychologist, a tactician with insight, a leader with
confidence in himself and his team... and most importantly, he is
protective of his boys. Very protective. He would rather court with
scandal than have any of his boys have to deal with it. He protected
John Terry, but the poor guy couldn't protect himself and successfully
fractured his national team and lost his captaincy because of an
indiscretion. It wouldn't have happened if Jose was on board.
Why talk about the man when I'm expected to compare it to modern
warfare? Well, you can't talk about the roman empire without talking
about Germanicus, Julius, Scipio. You can't talk about the napoleonic
wars with talking about Napoleon. WWII without Hitler, Rommel,
Eisenhower, Montgomery.
Mourinho has a record of never losing a match at home stretching from
his days in Porto. Nobody does that. Usually, you slip up. He is proud
of it and keeps it.
It's the small victories that add to your complete victory.
--
Sent from my mobile device
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