EPL, England, Europe, Features, Ian John, Leagues, Regions POSTS

Why can’t it be that the other team just played better?

Published by Ian John on December 14, 2009

Football managers are a breed apart. I suppose they have to have the thickest skin of all to deal with the amount of criticism they get, but I have to also say that in some cases, it is well deserved and this is particularly evident when a team that they are managing, for I think all managers at some point are guilty of this, lose a game.

This weekend it was Sir Alex’s comments about United’s loss to Aston Villa. More specifically that his insistence that timekeeping should be taken out of the hands of the officials, namely because Martin Atkinson didn’t add on enough extra time, according to Sir Alex, at the end of the game. Three minutes wasn’t enough, Sir Alex blasted, it should have been a lot more. Yada Yada Yada…

Please don’t think this is a blast Sir Alex piece, it isn’t. I fully contend, in the long history of football, he is a genuine contender for the greatest manager who has ever lived. His achievements bear comparison with ANY of the greats at ANY club and in ANY era. In the pantheon of Manchester United legends, he will stand taller than Best, Giggs, Charlton, Law even, dare I say it, Busby. He is as good as his job as it is possible to be. His skills are not in question. He deserves and gets, massive respect for what he has achieved in his time at Old Trafford.

But once, just for once Sir Alex, can it not be about how United were robbed by an official? Could it not be that Aston Villa deserved it? That United were, on the day, in something of a rarity, just not good enough? I watched the game, Villa rode their luck at times, but my God they worked hard and defended superbly. I fully thought they were good value for the win and to be honest, had Atkinson added on thirty minutes of extra time, I could not see United breaking through.

This to me is the problem many top level managers face when their teams lose. I hate hearing about how officials robbed them, how someone cheated, how a manager sulked and refused to shake hands, another lame excuse about debt or injuries, there wasn’t enough time, the kit was the wrong colour, the referee deliberately got it wrong because he has an agenda against the club… Boring excuse after boring excuse…

The fact is, teams cannot win ALL the time. If they did, Football would be about as popular a spectator sport as, say, the Luge. The fact is the opposition CAN play well and sometimes when they do, they win. There’s no conspiracy involved, sometimes THEY are just better than YOU on the day.

There is no shame in that, there is no need for recourse to slam the officials and put them under added pressure in future games, there’s no need to belittle how well a team played by suggesting that had the referee done his job properly you’d have won the game, there is no need to suggest that because you lost it is therefore someone elses fault. All that does is make you look sad and any respect people have for you is diminished.

So, managers, grow up. A defeat may well be down occasionally to a controversial decision. My all means, in such cases, let rip. However when you make spurious claims over why you lost a game, you end up sounding, or acting, like a spoilt, sore loser. Especially when you have had 93 minutes to win the game and have singularly failed to do so.

Great managers are judged by their successes. In that respect Ferguson, Wenger et al shall rightly be judged to be the best of their era. But I think legends come from how they handle defeat too and in that respect, many managers, not just the two I mentioned, have some way to go before they can consider themselves even close.

They want a role model? Then look across the pond and to American Football coaching legend Jim Mora. A man whose honesty in appraising his team is not only brutal, but entirely wonderful. How entertaining would a post match press conference be if football managers, just every now and then, do something like this;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq7BYOnDrM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4ox7aX_wc&feature=related

And if someone had the balls to do this about the behaviour of their fans during matches against fierce rivals, maybe, just maybe, the fans would think twice about doint it…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4MPGCuKaL0&feature=related

Image Courtesy of ***Checkmihlyrics*** at Flickr.com

Readers Rating: