Who You Really Are….
By Danny Matharu at 19 June, 2010, 4:32 pm
England 0 – 0 Algeria – World Cup 2010: Cape Town, South Africa
Whilst in work on the Saturday (19/06) after the horrendous showing on the Friday night, I was looking through the reports from the game on the various football websites and came across this post from lesduffym in response to a BBC blog from Phil McNulty.
For those of you who are not interested in football, England drew 0-0 with the relative minnow of Algeria. The result was not the best, but the performance was absolutely dire and this was the post from lesduffym:
This quote from PoolHall Junkies comes to mind:
“You watch those nature documentaries on the cable? You see the one about lions? You got this lion. He’s the king of the jungle, huge mane out to here. He’s laying under a tree, in the middle of Africa. He’s so big, it’s so hot. He doesn’t want to move. Now the little lions come, they start messing with him. Biting his tail, biting his ears. He doesn’t do anything.
“The lioness, she starts messing with him. Coming over, making trouble. Still nothing. Now the other animals, they notice this. They start to move in.
“The jackals; hyenas. They’re barking at him, laughing at him. They nip his toes, and eat the food that’s in his domain. They do this, then they get closer and closer, bolder and bolder.
“Till one day, that lion gets up and tears the shit out of everybody. Runs like the wind, eats everything in his path. Cause every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals, who he is. “
In our case, there are 3 lions, and I think that we may see them show everyone how good we really are on Wednesday.
I reckon this post can be related to biz as maybe one day, if people start taking the piss, you might just have to show them who you really are.
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Brilliant analogy and very true.
From a personal point of view it was painful to look at that pitch and see hundreds of millions of pounds worth of money strolling around as if taking a walk in the park. I never could see how such ridiculous sums of money could be justified and after that performance it surely begs a change? How about performance related pay? I don’t think we’d see the apathy then somehow.
That’s it – rant over.
Thanks Cat!
It was painful to watch (very) and I reckon the worst part of it all wasn’t the result as we can still get out of jail – it was the performance.
I’m just hoping I never have to ‘get like the lion’ as I hope they’ll already know….
I agree with Cat about the money side of things but also our expectations are so high that I sometimes feel we can’t help but be disappointed. Whilst totally agreeing that the performances in both matches have been far from what we’ve seen the lads do for their league sides, I get frustrated by the amount of pressure that’s exerted – starting months before the competition has even started. “It’s coming home”, it hasn’t lived here since 1966!!! I want us to win, I want to see the lion, but either way life will go on as before.
Cheers Ruth!
I know what you’re saying about pressure and on watching the game Friday night, it would seem that it was pressure rather than being crap (which obviously as individuals they are not) which led to the worst performance I can remember in a long time.
As far as expectation goes I agree also, although I think as a nation we should have high expectations of them. They’re all playing for the top teams week in-week out and should be used to the pressure. When playing in the Champions League, they’ll experience pressure and world class teams/players in abundance.
As for me, for once I’ve not had any expectations this time. All I was hoping for is a squad putting in good performances and to be seen to be working for each other and the shirt….. I’m not doubting for a minute that they are working but the showing thus far has been inenept.
I can understand one or two players having an off day on any given match, but practically the whole bloody team……?
P.S. COME ON THE LION!
Great analogy if we turn out to be that lion.
Friday’s performance was woeful. It was unexplainable from a team filled with so much talent – no wonder Capello looked surprised and sounded stunned in his post match interview.
Capello needs to make some brave decisions, and some big changes (drop Terry, bring in Dawson?!). He strikes me as a man that would listen carefully to his captain, but then make the final decisions on team selection & teams formation himself.
As for the performance so far… ability of a proven manager isn’t a factor, lack of skill clearly isn’t a factor, and neither is money. All I can put it down to is player nerves and dealing with the weight of expectation.
I can’t believe in today’s world, the FA, the clubs and the players themselves haven’t significantly invested in personal coaching to ensure that their mental state match their physical fitness. Other sports stars seem to have thrived on such coaching, as have many business leaders.
In the meantime, is it too much to hope for a decent game on Wednesday and England progressing to the next stage? We’re all going to need a lift after the budget on Tuesday.