What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

I diverge from my two-part series for this post. The second half will be posted shortly.

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

#1- A coach can make a big difference, but the players ultimately decide a team’s fate.

I don’t intend to embark on anything close to discussing the Andre Villas-Boas sacking and all that led to it. That is a topic for a different post; but who can argue that Chelsea have made an incredible turnaround in a matter of days? After dropping points in numerous league clashes with lesser sides and standing at the brink of elimination from the Champions League and FA cup, Chelsea turned round their fortunes by nabbing two league wins and forcing decisive victories against Birmingham and Napoli to progress in the FA cup and Champions League, respectively. Many would venture to mark this renewal at the Bridge as evidence that AVB needed the sack and once he was gone and Roberto Di Matteo stepped in, the rot that had been causing Cobham to stink so badly was finally on the mend. Similar situations were witnessed at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was sacked and Avram Grant took the helm for the remainder of the season as well as when Luiz Felipe Scolari was shown the door and the ever-popular Guus Hiddink called the shots until the end of the season.

Of course, a coach makes a load of difference, but I would venture to guess that in some situations, especially those in which the players often exert an incredible amount of influence in the dressing room on account of their experience and personality (such as the case at Chelsea), the players may have even more pull than the coach. Call me crazy, but there was a very visible and distinct difference in not just the playing style of Chelsea, but also the attitude and moral of the team from under the last days of the Villas-Boas reign to these first few days of life under Di Matteo. To take it one step further, Chelsea’s performance against Stoke in their second game under the interim manager was dismal; the player’s attitudes reminding me of the previous weeks under AVB. The coach made some difference but it was the players that needed to change to gain big wins over Napoli and Leicester City.

To make my point clear, I take you back to when Chelsea played Manchester City earlier this season. I saw a Chelsea side that made me long for previous winning seasons. AVB was still there, and I highly doubt he completely changed his coaching style for the second half of that match, but the players changed their outlook and got the 3 points they were looking for, playing a style that was so familiar from their previous title-winning seasons, a style that Villas-Boas had never even tried at the club. I saw many similarities between the home and away fixtures these clubs played this season. Unluckily, Chelsea fell short in the latter one, but they played much the same because they decided to.

#2- You can pay for talented players, but you cannot pay for class.

Don’t worry, not all my points will be as long as the first. Me being a Chelsea fan put aside, I was extremely disappointed with some of the performances made by Manchester City players in Tuesday’s game. First: I am sure I was not the only one to see Toure push Mata in the face and kick him when he did not even have possession of the ball. There is absolutely no reason for that, and it goes to show that talent does not always equal class on the soccer pitch. Second: It is no secret that Mario Balotelli has a sketchy attitude, at best, but seeing him give up several times on chasing a loose ball for no apparent reason, and rarely show any desire to be on the pitch was only affirmation that a paycheck does not determine if you are going to get a good showing from your stars.

My third and final example is (do I really want to start this conversation?) Carlos Tevez. The form and length of his punishment is not my decision to make and I admit he did have to sit out for a while, but after what he did to that club, and continued to do after his first offense would have been more than enough for me to give him the sack, and I cannot believe that they put him back on the field, and to applause! If this was the first and only time something like this had happened in his career it would be different, but isn't that why he left Manchester United? Don’t be surprised to see similar outbursts from the “superstar” in the future. Manchester City have certainly paid for bags of talent but in the process have been unable to harness the class required for world-class squad. Why do you think they have been knocked out of two European competitions this season? Because raw skill alone cannot compete against teams that have skill and class.

#3- A player’s form and confidence can change in a very short period of time, and just because a substitution has worked in many games does not mean it will work in every game.

I bet you can’t guess who I’m talking about. I was never one to give up on Fernando Torres. His motivation was never lacking, or his work ethic. What was lacking was his confidence. I will speak more on him in another post, but that confidence was vastly improved as a result of his two goal two assist showing in the FA cup. He was looking extremely sharp and for every minute his regular hard working self in the Manchester City game, even coming back on numerous occasions to play defense. In so many situations in the past, Didier Drogba has been brought on as a substitute in the closing minutes of a game (often for Torres himself) and has changed the course of the game into a win. I do not doubt his immense skill, but it was only five minutes after the bringing on of Drogba for Torres that Manchester City staged their comeback. I feel the substitution was a deciding factor in the outcome of the match.

As well, from the look on Torres' face when he was being brought off, it was a blow to the player's confidence when he was doing so absolutely well. A substitution working many times in the past does not warrant it to work every time, and each game and substitution decision needs to be made in context and taking into consideration the current performance of the player on the field, and the difference he is making.

Joga Bonito

Dallin

My Unexpected Love for the Beautiful Game

The purpose of this blog is, truly and honestly, to fulfill a kind of dream that has been repeating in my mind for quite a few years. I love soccer. I also love (though not to the same degree) writing. Yes, writing about soccer would be a dream come true for me, but since Sports Illustrated and Soccernet don’t have any openings for a 21-year-old wannabe with little experience in the field and even less education, this is where I will start. As a foundational argument for whatever articles follow in this rant of a project, I wish to start with the reasons I love soccer. I will begin with how I fell in love with the beautiful game, and in the next article explain why I love watching it, particularly Chelsea FC (because I know the enjoyment of both are a complete mystery to many of you). So please allow me to indulge myself and, who knows? Perhaps you may even enjoy it. 

Experiencing the kind of resistance that comes from being a soccer fanatic in a school, community, and nation, even, that shows so much indifference to the sport has been something of a blessing in disguise. I have no intention of throwing a pity party for myself or even trying to impose this sport on anyone. I love all sports, and I enjoy watching an athlete performing at the peak of human potential whatever the capacity may be. No, the reason for this is to open the door of the beautiful game to those who may otherwise never understand why it is the most popular sport in the world. At the high school where I experienced the climax of my playing career, as embarrassing as that is to admit, there were only a handful, at best, of people that could carry on an even semi-intelligent conversation about the sport. It was difficult, even hurtful at times, to see hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people pack into a high school stadium or gymnasium to watch football or basketball and then go to the local middle school or city park to play in front of maybe 20 people, who were almost never anyone but parents. Students and adults in the community would talk about the football game last night, or who will start on this year’s basketball team, and not even know of the existence of a varsity soccer team.

The reason I bring this to the forefront of this pioneering article is because you cannot grow up in an environment like this and still be so dedicated to soccer without developing a deep love for the sport, the kind of love that I have for the beautiful game. I started like the rest of America does, playing little league soccer in a city recreation program; parents and coaches not understanding a single thing about the sport except that you are supposed to kick the ball into the goal, having never watched a single game in their lives or played a minute of soccer for that matter (and we wonder why our national team does so badly on the international stage). But why should they? There isn’t much to the sport anyway is there? Wasn’t it just invented so that children and girls have something to do? That is certainly what every American-made movie about soccer portrays (if the sarcasm is not obvious enough, let me say one more thing: every time I hear one of those things said, I feel like slapping the offender in the face). An age comes when soccer is no longer cute, when guys realize that to fit in they have to start playing football or baseball instead of this sport that seems to be only for girls, and when parents realize that their son is too old to play soccer and needs to move to a more “mature” sport, and when that time came I broke the mold for some reason; me and the other 20 or so other guys that ended up playing high school soccer together. All I know about why I made this decision is that different sporting schedules were conflicting and I chose the sport I was best at.

It was the best decision I ever made. I became engrossed in the sport. It became the only thing that I wanted to do with my time. I played every possible season on every possible team that I could, some years playing a season of soccer every season of the year. I remember one game when I was around 14 years old. We were playing in a tournament in Pocatello against a team that was supposed to be the favorites to win the tournament, and the first team that we had played outside of Idaho Falls. For some reason I can remember a specific play when the ball was about to go out of bounds and I sprinted to the side and slid to keep it in, after everyone else had left it to go out. The ball was then passed up the field for a goal. As silly as it may sound, I don’t think that I remembered this because it was a good play or anything of that nature, but because it was the first time I remember playing with heart, which is a feeling I know some of you can understand, but not everyone. It is when I realized that soccer was so much more than a sport to me. I could have let the ball go, but it wasn’t in my nature to do so. 

Another occasion I remember came when I was much younger, perhaps ten, playing on a city recreation team. I usually played defense or midfielder, but in this game the coach let me play up top, and we were losing by a few goals. I remember the coach telling me that I could play striker if I gave it my all and proved to her that I deserved it. I don’t remember exactly how many I scored, but I scored quite a few because I wanted to know that I could. I remember the greatest moment of playing in my senior year (that was cut short because of a knee injury), was when we beat Skyline, a rival high school, for the first time in my High School’s history. The game was so much more than fun or competitive. It gave me a feeling that I had rarely felt any other time in my life and that is impossible to describe. 90 minutes of pure adrenaline, wanting every ball, fighting for every possession, doing everything within human capacity to not let the other team get a shot on goal. The feeling of victory was something I will never forget. Again, it was not so much the fact that we played a good game as it was the fact that we had pulled together as a team, and left everything on the field. It was pure joy.

I fell in love with soccer because I have always felt at home with a ball at my feet. I am not even close to being a really good player, not even one of the best on my team, but that didn’t matter. I love playing because of the feeling I get when I play. Whenever I am stressed or worried about something, I can go play soccer and my head will be completely cleared of everything but the beautiful game. Perhaps anyone can feel this in any sport, but that is hard for me to imagine. 90 minutes with only a 15 minute halftime. No other breaks, few, if any, substitutions, no pads, no other special equipment; just you, 21 other players, and a pitch. You get what you put into it and there is nowhere to hide. No chance to stop the game and re-group if things are not going your way. You can either lay down and let the other team trample over you, or you can pull it together and change the game yourself. It is a language that is spoken by the entire world, and a passion that is ignited in every country in the world. 

If anyone reading this knows exactly what I am talking about, if you have your own “played with heart” moments, or 90 minute adrenaline spells, if you can lace up your boots, kick a ball around for a while and have the best time of your life: I salute you.

“To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.”
J. B. Priestley
The Good Companions.
















Joga Bonito


Dallin