A reminder to Brave Warriors’ armchair critics
THE most unreliable method of reasoning, which treats majority opinion as often revealed by voting as a source of truth and reliable guide on subsequent action on every concern. Political democracy is desirable because it allows widescale political participation and is likely to provide a valuable check on would-be tyrants.
Nonetheless, there are many areas of life in which taking majority opinion seriously would be an extremely unreliable way of discovering the most appropriate course of action.
Those who easily succumb e to the democratic fallacy feel a need to attach decisions to the majority views at the slightest provocation wherever possible, naively assuming that this is either the best way of discovering the truth about any matter or better still, the easiest strategy for making sensible decisions, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of opinions are largely ignorant of the subject at hand, which they are viciously peddling, as can be reflected in their shallow fashion of reasoning.
For starters, yours truly has deliberately touched on the above analogy to interrogate baseless an unfair criticism thrown at the Brave Warriors 3-0 defeat at the hands of hosts Guinea in their opening match of biannual Caf Chan Cup, underway in the West African country.
Of course, then scoreline is flattering and it’s certainly the not the kind of result we were hoping to fashion, but that should not take away the commitment of our players and the manner in which they competed against active professionals on foreign soil.
Yours truly still maintains that the 3-0 scoreline is not a true reflection of the team’s overall performance m and willingness to win. There were flashes of some HARDEGAT football displayed by our boys and with a little beat of luck, we could have scored a goal or two.
Fair enough, we conceded sillygoalsthroughelementary schoolboy errors because of lack concentration as there seemed to be no proper coordination between the two centre backs, but alas what can one expect from players who have been starved of playing competitive league football for almost two seasons, let alone engaging in regular training sessions.
Namibians football fans are very quick to roast coaches and players without looking at contributing factors. Just because we had a great tournament in the corresponding fixture last time around, it does not mean it should be a take to repeat the same feat. Remember this particular tournament is exclusively tailored for locally-based players and considering the fact that our domestic football league has been rendered dormant for the last two seasons because of unending in-fighting, our players are not on the same match or mental fitness level as their competitors. Well, some might pose the question of why we are fielding a team in a high profile continental tournament whilst we don’t have competitive league activities. As a confirmed member of Fifa, we have to remain relevant and honour our international assignments whilst sorting out our internal differences.
My humble plea to fellow Namibians, let us be proud patriotic citizens and throw our weight behind the boys and the technical staff instead of unjustifiably hurling insults at the team.
Athletes are human beings with feelings and with modern technologies, they are reading all these negative comments on Facebook and that’s not what we exactly want our Ambassadors to be subjected to at this point.
In all fairness, the local media should also follow suit and take a leaf out of their foreign counterparts, England, for instance, will never crucify the Three Lions in such brutal fashion during a major tournament, the English press stands firmly behind the team until the final match before making post-match analyses of the team’s performance.
I rest my case.