Week when sporting myths were well and truly busted
Sergio a fine example of a true great
THE look of disbelief on the face of Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino was simply magnificent. He had just been told by a TV interviewer that failure in the penalty shoot-out of their League Cup semi-final against Chelsea must be “a terrible way to lose”.
Pochettino didn’t need to think before he replied.
“No,” he said with the fierce conviction of a man who understands the psychology of his sport.
“It’s better to reach the shoot-out than to lose because the opponents scored more goals during the match. Anything can happen with penalties but you still have a chance.”
I guess the assessment of Pochettino may have been eyeopening to many people. It is one of the enduring myths of sport that losing on penalties is the most agonising or terrible way to be knocked out of a competition – or to miss out on playing in a cup final.
It isn’t. That’s the plain truth delivered by the hugely impressive Spurs manager – and you can imagine the players of Burton Albion, who were crushed 10-0 on aggregate by Manchester City in the other semi-final, will heartily concur.
Pochettino’s reality tells us that if a team has reached a penalty shoot-out its performance has been strong. A good manager will build on that constructively.
Another fondly held myth of modern sport was also busted the other night in that captivating semi-final showdown between Chelsea and Tottenham.
This is the one, widely believed, that it is pure managerial folly to publicly criticise modern millionaire footballers as Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri did after a woeful display the previous weekend by his team against Arsenal.
The Italian declared that his group of players were extremely difficult to motivate and said: “If they can’t have the attitude I want, they should not be players at this level.” It was a stinging comment from a football manager, who said in his native language that he was “incazzatissimo.” This was translated as ‘extremely angry’ – which was a way of putting it politely.
An army of pundits jumped on Sarri, telling him that public rebukes are dangerous folly in this era of player power and precious egos in the dressing room.
Is that true? Well, this football manager doesn’t think so, and his Chelsea team responded with a stirring display against Spurs. Sarri is an outsider in football, a chap who used to be a bank manager, and he prefers to tell the world how it really is.
He does so not to promote his own self-worth, in the style of Jose Mourinho, but because he cherishes honesty.
Happily, it seems that Chelsea’s players appreciate the distinction.
It was a week for myth-busting all round in sport – and a sobering example came at the cricket.
What on earth possessed the tourists, led by captain Joe Root, to believe a pair of English spinners were more likely to win a Test match at the Kensington Oval in Barbados than proper fast bowlers?
This is the home ground of Malcolm Marshall and Wes Hall, two of the all-time greats of West Indies cricket.
Rarely has a selection decision by England been more wrong-headed than the one, which excluded Stuart Broad to accommodate leg-spinner Adil Rashid.
Root said it was taken “on a hunch”, and we must suppose he won’t do that again in a hurry.
Another case of myth-busting happened at the Australian Open tennis tournament – where credence had been given to the idea that a new young generation of male tennis players was about to knock out the old guard.
Well, there is some promise being shown by Lucas Pouille and Stefanos Tsitsipas, but in the semi-finals they were swept away with contemptuous ease.
Novak Djokovic dropped just four games in his swift destruction of Pouille, while Rafa Nadal conceded only six games in dealing with the meagre threat of Tsitsipas.
Legends 2 Pretenders 0. Djokovic and Nadal already have 31 Grand Slam titles between them, and it may rise to 50 before they are done.
There was one more sporting myth to deal with by the end of the week – the belief that eloquence and intelligent insight as a television football pundit means you will be a good team manager.
It so rarely does.
The latest former superstar player to discover this truth is Thierry Henry, sacked after just 104 days in charge at Monaco; unhappy days that concluded with him having to apologise after his final match against Strasbourg for calling a player’s grandmother a ‘whore’.
Henry was comfortable and incisive on the TV sofa. The dug-out was a cushion of nails for which he was dismally ill-suited.
His swift demise also gives the lie to the idea that a football manager is relatively unimportant.
In fact, he is a crucial figure who sets the mood of a club, devises the tactics and inspires with his words and work.
Men like Mauricio and Maurizio, who know a myth when they see one. ONE of the all-time greats of rugby union will next weekend break the record for appearances in the Six Nations Championship, overtaking the 65 matches of Brian O’Driscoll.
Unless you are a rugby aficionado you may barely know the name of Sergio Parisse, but the No8 of Italy is a monumental sportsman.
He has been playing through defeat after walloping defeat with his country for 17 years, never giving up; always inspiring his team-mates to believe success is just round the corner.
Many observers believe he is the finest No8 of his generation. He is the most admirable and loyal superstar, bar none.
At the age of 35 Parisse is heading towards the end of his career but still says with imposing conviction: “I don’t want to give up my place in the team.”
When he takes the field against Scotland on Saturday nobody will have played in more matches since the tournament began in 1883.
Nobody has made more carries, gained more metres, made more tackles or played more games as captain.
Sergio Parisse is the finest example of the old Olympic motto that “it’s not the winning but the taking part that counts.”