.
Summer's truly here. It's still 27 degrees at 10.30 pm, and out in the garden there's still blue in the sky, with children's voices drifting through the semi-darkness from distant houses and gardens. It's the first really hot evening of the year.
The unexpected good news is that the English cricketers have defeated the Aussies for the third time out of three this week in the 5-game one-day tournament. Ponting looked pig-sick at such a comprehensive series defeat.
The expected bad news, if you're any kind of realist, is that England have been thoroughly trashed by Germany and knocked out of the World Cup. The writing was on the wall in letters ten feet high, and it duly happened. The commentariat should feel thoroughly ashamed, having tried to talk up England's chances of winning these past few days. The pundits were rubbish. They never had a shred of evidence to support their assertions that England would win - not just this one match, but the final also.
So how was your England v Germany party? Or were you one of those who prefer to suffer in solitude and silence - alone with your TV and free to rant and swear . . . and despair. Fortunately for me, my children invited themselves round to watch the game on my HD TV, and I had the pleasure of having grandchildren around to distract me from the awfulness of England's efforts.
It's not that I'd expected England to win - far from it. In a way I don't even care if they win. But what I do expect is to be entertained by a team playing imaginatively and competently. And did I expect them to do that? Of course not. Grandchildren are much more entertaining.
Not only are England a bad team - they're just a collection of past-it and never-had-it individuals. In many cases they're well past it.
It's a law of nature that the first to mature and blossom will be the first to fade and wilt. At the age of 16 Rooney looked like a bloke of twenty something. He's now prematurely balding and playing without pace or panache. Most of the others are well past their sell-by dates too.
It has to be said also that their preparation, tactics and management were abysmal. Joe Cole had 28 minutes on the pitch in this last game, having had virtually no match practice in the group games. How on earth was he supposed to do well?
Peter Crouch never even made it on to the pitch in ANY of the games, in spite of being the team's most prolific scorer for some two or three years. Capello ignored him from start to finish in these finals. Instead he threw Emile Heskey, who never scores, into the action after it became clear that it was a question of either score goals or say goodbye. Defoe looked sharper than Rooney but it was Defoe who was substituted for Heskey. Lunacy.
Chris Waddle popped up on the radio, ranting very effectively about all the stuff we know is wrong with English football - its organisation, funding, management, coaching methods and so on. Well said Chris. Check out the Radio 4 Today (Monday) website for a replay of Waddle's points, and passion. Round about 8.30.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8767000/8767126.stm
Will anything now change? Will English football (ie the Premiership) become anything other than an offshoot of the City and the Stock Exchange? Of course not. The selling off of football clubs to ruthless capitalist bastards who somehow manage to get control of the clubs with shedloads of debt which they somehow load on to the clubs themselves will continue to happen. That's why the Premiership exists - to make money for wise guys, insiders and fat cats. Why on earth would anyone in charge of this set-up volunteer to change it when they're getting personally rich because of it?
So well done Germany, with your supporter-owned clubs, your low admission charges and your sensible wage structures. You may not have the most watchable domestic football in the world, but you still produce quantities of intelligent, competent, thoughtful, well-motivated players who play a damned fine game of football. You played well, scored 4 excellent goals (again) and gave the neutrals something to cheer, unlike Brazil and Portugal. Let alone France, Italy and England.
Japan for the Cup!
.
Showing posts with label Capello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capello. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Layer 194 . . . Fair Play, Delights and Rapport
.
Fair Play
It's not often when you watch a live football match on TV that you experience a moment of sheer joy that has you yelling out or jumping up in ecstatic amazement and excitement - and this goes for whichever team you support (as if sitting on a sofa constitutes support!), or whatever match you're watching. Those moments of terrific surprise and delight when somebody or some team does something so beautifully and so unexpectedly that it sends a shock through your nervous system so as to cause an involuntary spasm of shouting, cheering and swearing – such moments tend to be very few and far between, especially if you're English and you enjoy football.
To have it happen three times, then, in a match - and what's even more amazing, in a match involving England - is a rare treat. To see an England team completely dominate and outplay another team ranked in the world's top 10 is – well, unknown. Almost. I won't forget the 5 – 1 thrashing of Germany, in Germany. And so it was when England defeated Croatia 5 – 1 at Wembley last night, and in doing so qualified for the finals of the World Cup in South Africa next year. Job done. Capello 8 – Others 0.
What a guy. Talk about emotionally intelligent! He doesn't fake or exaggerate excitement, or anger, or disgust, or frustration – and if he feels those things he doesn't necessarily try to stop himself from showing small signs of them either. What you see is what you get, and what we have is a team manager who's a real man – a mensch – who can keep a check on his dominant emotions without completely covering them up or denying they exist.
According to Leo Rosten, the author of The Joys of Yiddish, a mensch is “a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, and a sense of what is right, responsible, and decorous”.
Capello's a three-dimensional human being who's a thinker and a planner, a plotter and an analyst, a calculator and a strategist, as well as someone who knows how to relate to the people he's leading and managing, both as professionals and as human beings. He has intellect, plus emotional, social and spiritual intelligence, in abundance and in harmony, in contrast to every dork of an England manager you can possibly remember, with the honourable exceptions of Bobby Robson, dearly departed, and maybe Ron Greenwood and Alf Ramsey.
He doesn't try to be overly pally with them, like the Rain Man - the Wally with the Brolly - who shall remain nameless, who so shamefully and so spectacularly fucked up on the job, finally crashing and burning in a corresponding fixture with Croatia two years ago, a game that England unbelievably lost 2 - 3 at Wembley.
Capello is polite, and courteous, and professionally distant, as he should be. But he also knows how to coach, how to explain things, how to empathise, how to enthuse, and how to motivate. But not in a gung-ho up-and-at-em ridiculous pumped-up adrenaline-rush kind of a Keegan or (ahem) 'Turnip' Tayloresque way. (I still have to smile to myself whenever I remember dear Graham's little gems – Do I Not Like That!, You've Just Cost Me My Job!, etc)
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/sport/graham_taylor
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/graham_taylor.html
“Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish.”
No – forget I said smile - laugh uproariously out loud.
Two of the goals last night gave a quiet little buzz of pleasure – when Lennon jinked his way through to a penalty and Lampard efficiently slotted his kick, and when Rooney also unspectacularly threaded the ball past the goalkeeper after the hapless chap had dreadfully mis-kicked to our unmarked striker. (A real shame for the poor goalie – his superb 'keeping had kept the score down to only 2 – 0 at half time when it could easily have been 5 – 0 by then.)
The other three goals were all superbly made and superbly taken headers that flashed into the net – very “English”, as Bilic, the Croatian manager, might have said. Cue ecstatic celebration. To be fair to Bilic he later admitted his team had been humiliated and destroyed.
Whenever someone asks me which team I support I have to admit I don't really 'support' any team. What I do is watch with interest, and hope to enjoy some brilliant action – thoughtful, disciplined and passionate teamwork, great skills, effective defending, dynamic attacking and brilliant goalscoring. I hope to see the game well played, with lots of goals, and victory going to whichever team deserves to win.
I know people who are passionate supporters of a particular team – certain Millwall supporters for example – who don't give a shit about the quality of the football or the justice of the result. Winning is all that matters, no matter how badly the game is played, no matter how dire the football. It's 'my team right or wrong', which is pretty much the way they play the game of life. Within their own little world, their family and their mates can do absolutely NO wrong, and they'll support them and fight for them no matter what, against all comers if necessary.
Sadly such people often only get really excited in life when they're seeing their team win a match, or when they're having a fight or a 'bundle' on 'behalf' of their team or their mates. They might admit to themselves that their team deserved to lose, and they might mention it to their mates down the pub, but they'd never let on to an 'outsider'.
Thankfully, though, there are many more people who have a sense of 'fair play', and who will even feel some odd little sense of satisfaction when their team loses a match, on the basis that the useless f****** b*******'s deserve to be beaten up and defeated. Lots of English people don't like winning if it's a result of cheating or unfair tactics, and lots of us don't even like winning if the victory is undeserved.
But even those of us who are the least partisan and the least nationalistic feel some sort of emotional attachment to our national and our city or town teams, and we get enormous amounts of enjoyment when 'our lads' do their jobs as well as they did them last night.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/09/world-cup-qualifier-england-croatia
It's the women's turn this afternoon – 5.00pm BBC2 – England v Germany – European Nations Final.
Bafana Bafana? Crazy name, crazy guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_national_football_team
-----------------------------------
PS Try to record the sounds you make (by using some mechanical or electronic means) as you read the following quotes, because I guarantee you will never laugh so much again in your entire life. If anyone ever doubts the power of words and language to affect our moods – here's the proof. Have some tissues handy to dry your eyes. Do NOT read this if you're in your office, supposedly working. But DO make a recording of your laughter the first time you read it because nothing's ever as funny the second time around.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Palms/6687/managers.html
---------------------------------------
Life's Little Delights
Yesterday on the Today programme there was a discussion about what delights us in our day to day lives. Oxzen had always been a strong believer that the capacity and the ability to experience delight is a strong marker of spiritual intelligence. It's the little things . . .
Here's a description of the book called Delight that JB Priestley first published in 1949 – taken from the Amazon website -
On the Today programme Alexei Sayle, the one and only, the wonderful, said he delights in re-reading old copies of guides to restaurants and bars that no longer exist.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delight-J-B-Priestley/dp/1905080670
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/j-b-priestley/delight.htm
http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/07092009/19/paxman-brand-reveal-delights.html
-------------------------------
Rapport
I have a new theory that the secret of his success is the 'rapport' that Capello has developed with his players, and it's also what readers have with a writer like Priestly, or whoever their favourite authors happen to be. To have rapport with someone doesn't mean you have to like or admire that individual. You may have reservations about them as an individual, and you may even dislike some aspects of their behaviour or their ideas. But what you do have is the ability to be on their wavelength, and to be able to communicate or empathise from a basis of shared assumptions about life or about the nature of the task you're working on, or whatever.
To experience 'flow' is hard enough as an individual. For two or more people working together to experience it simultaneously whilst engaged in a particular project, or activity, or game, is almost impossible unless you have rapport. I suspect that what great coaches can do is build rapport, between themselves and others, and between other individuals.
It's a shared sense of what's right and what's wrong, what's effective and what's not, when to do something, and when not. It's part instinct, part empathy, part logic, part knowledge, part understanding, and part intuition. We need rapport that's both inner and outer, within oneself and with others. It's a coming together in three dimensions. It's harmony and resonance, like voices in a choir or strings on an instrument.
Or players on a pitch. England's play last night had a 'flow' to it. They're finally starting to play as a team whose members have a proper rapport. After years of failing to play well together, people like Lampard, Gerrard, Lennon and Rooney are beginning to 'gel' and harmonise. It's partly down to experience, and partly down to the consistent messages and sets of beliefs and understandings that a good coach or manager is able to instil. It's the fine tuning as well as the correct choice of strings, instruments or players. Without rapport and flow nothing is achieved. You can have great skills and individual flair, but without rapport you tend to go nowhere.
--------------------------------------
Obama and his Congregation
Like a priest talking to his parishioners Barack Obama yesterday met with, and spoke to, the Congressmen and women and the Senators of the House of Representatives who may or may not be willing to vote for his health care proposals. It seems he made a great speech, or delivered a great sermon, whichever way you prefer to look at it. It seems like a great effort to establish, or re-establish, some rapport with the teams that must function properly together if anything is going to be achieved, and if the country is to make any progress towards becoming more civilised and properly democratic. The country voted for change. Will it be allowed to have it?
30 million Americans can't even get health insurance, let alone are able to afford it. 46 million of them have no health insurance whatsoever.
Check out clips of his speech here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-address
“We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”
Full text of the speech here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-reform-speech-full-text
Michael Tomasky's blog on the speech:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-big-speech
Tons of comments on it already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
-------------------------------------------
Other Random Musings
Abdullah Abdullah
In case you haven't been paying attention, this is the name of the hapless guy who lost out in this week's election for the presidency of Afghanistan. How lucky is he! However, he's now complaining that the vote, and the count, were fixed. Some people just don't know when to shut the fuck up and just be grateful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Abdullah
I'm always fascinated by these guys with double names, like Boutros Boutros-Ghali – people so good they name them twice. Imagine Obama Obama, or Barack Barack. Which would it be?
Brown Brown. Cameron Cameron.
I remember Billy Connelly once making a comment about posh people in Scotland having surnames as first names. Like Cameron.
This naming business is really bizarre. What happens to people, that they want to actually change their names? The most famous examples are when people change their religions, or suddenly adopt a religion. On the other hand, why should we stayed lumbered with names we don't like?
Oxzen Oxzen. Definitely a ring to it.
John Cooper Clark
I think I wrote about JCC some time ago, and yesterday I came across a poem of his on Spotify that you should listen to if you ever get so angry with someone you want to beat them up and call them a twat. It's called Twat. Just type Twat in the Spotify search box.
http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/twat.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5QMT-JUt4
Dion, Dion
I know I've mentioned Dion before, but I'm going to put in another plug for King of the New York Streets because I think it's possibly the best anti-drug song ever written. It's not didactic – it just sets out what it feels like to be someone living a coke-fuelled life, thinking he's the boss and the head honcho of his neighbourhood, or whatever, and ends with a blank statement - “This attitude comes from cocaine lies ”- the delusions of that particular drug. The refrain goes, “I was only sixteen years, so what could I have known . . . . ?”
The very best thing about the track is that it ROCKS. You want to listen to it on account of the great rhythm and the driving groove, plus the great vocals. Catch it on Spotify and YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYT3DoMOPU Steve Cropper's wearing the same sweater he wore on the Booker T/Green Onions video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOCW8brdBaE&feature=related
The lyrics are hard to find on the Internet, but you can see them here:
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/05/layer-156-musical-interlude-vision-for.html
http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/2009/05/dion-king-of-new-york-streets.html
http://www.diondimucci.com/main.html
http://www.diondimucci.com/king_albums/dm_notes.html – a great piece of rock n roll writing by Dave Marsh. Read it at your leisure.
Dave Marsh
Here's another great example of his writing – about Springsteen:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sLJZ84jaxhsC&pg=PA518&lpg=PA518&dq=%22dave+marsh%22+%2B+dion&source=bl&ots=gimIMO0Xpd&sig=xdH7E24gFbIwsLfxpQfgWSvFRA4&hl=en&ei=2OqoStDUEOaZjAf22-GCCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false
“Marsh is also a member of the National Advisory Board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Marsh
http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarsh_1001.htm - The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.
This man has TASTE! Feel the rapport.
.
Fair Play
It's not often when you watch a live football match on TV that you experience a moment of sheer joy that has you yelling out or jumping up in ecstatic amazement and excitement - and this goes for whichever team you support (as if sitting on a sofa constitutes support!), or whatever match you're watching. Those moments of terrific surprise and delight when somebody or some team does something so beautifully and so unexpectedly that it sends a shock through your nervous system so as to cause an involuntary spasm of shouting, cheering and swearing – such moments tend to be very few and far between, especially if you're English and you enjoy football.
To have it happen three times, then, in a match - and what's even more amazing, in a match involving England - is a rare treat. To see an England team completely dominate and outplay another team ranked in the world's top 10 is – well, unknown. Almost. I won't forget the 5 – 1 thrashing of Germany, in Germany. And so it was when England defeated Croatia 5 – 1 at Wembley last night, and in doing so qualified for the finals of the World Cup in South Africa next year. Job done. Capello 8 – Others 0.
What a guy. Talk about emotionally intelligent! He doesn't fake or exaggerate excitement, or anger, or disgust, or frustration – and if he feels those things he doesn't necessarily try to stop himself from showing small signs of them either. What you see is what you get, and what we have is a team manager who's a real man – a mensch – who can keep a check on his dominant emotions without completely covering them up or denying they exist.
According to Leo Rosten, the author of The Joys of Yiddish, a mensch is “a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, and a sense of what is right, responsible, and decorous”.
Capello's a three-dimensional human being who's a thinker and a planner, a plotter and an analyst, a calculator and a strategist, as well as someone who knows how to relate to the people he's leading and managing, both as professionals and as human beings. He has intellect, plus emotional, social and spiritual intelligence, in abundance and in harmony, in contrast to every dork of an England manager you can possibly remember, with the honourable exceptions of Bobby Robson, dearly departed, and maybe Ron Greenwood and Alf Ramsey.
He doesn't try to be overly pally with them, like the Rain Man - the Wally with the Brolly - who shall remain nameless, who so shamefully and so spectacularly fucked up on the job, finally crashing and burning in a corresponding fixture with Croatia two years ago, a game that England unbelievably lost 2 - 3 at Wembley.
Capello is polite, and courteous, and professionally distant, as he should be. But he also knows how to coach, how to explain things, how to empathise, how to enthuse, and how to motivate. But not in a gung-ho up-and-at-em ridiculous pumped-up adrenaline-rush kind of a Keegan or (ahem) 'Turnip' Tayloresque way. (I still have to smile to myself whenever I remember dear Graham's little gems – Do I Not Like That!, You've Just Cost Me My Job!, etc)
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/sport/graham_taylor
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/graham_taylor.html
“Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish.”
No – forget I said smile - laugh uproariously out loud.
Two of the goals last night gave a quiet little buzz of pleasure – when Lennon jinked his way through to a penalty and Lampard efficiently slotted his kick, and when Rooney also unspectacularly threaded the ball past the goalkeeper after the hapless chap had dreadfully mis-kicked to our unmarked striker. (A real shame for the poor goalie – his superb 'keeping had kept the score down to only 2 – 0 at half time when it could easily have been 5 – 0 by then.)
The other three goals were all superbly made and superbly taken headers that flashed into the net – very “English”, as Bilic, the Croatian manager, might have said. Cue ecstatic celebration. To be fair to Bilic he later admitted his team had been humiliated and destroyed.
Whenever someone asks me which team I support I have to admit I don't really 'support' any team. What I do is watch with interest, and hope to enjoy some brilliant action – thoughtful, disciplined and passionate teamwork, great skills, effective defending, dynamic attacking and brilliant goalscoring. I hope to see the game well played, with lots of goals, and victory going to whichever team deserves to win.
I know people who are passionate supporters of a particular team – certain Millwall supporters for example – who don't give a shit about the quality of the football or the justice of the result. Winning is all that matters, no matter how badly the game is played, no matter how dire the football. It's 'my team right or wrong', which is pretty much the way they play the game of life. Within their own little world, their family and their mates can do absolutely NO wrong, and they'll support them and fight for them no matter what, against all comers if necessary.
Sadly such people often only get really excited in life when they're seeing their team win a match, or when they're having a fight or a 'bundle' on 'behalf' of their team or their mates. They might admit to themselves that their team deserved to lose, and they might mention it to their mates down the pub, but they'd never let on to an 'outsider'.
Thankfully, though, there are many more people who have a sense of 'fair play', and who will even feel some odd little sense of satisfaction when their team loses a match, on the basis that the useless f****** b*******'s deserve to be beaten up and defeated. Lots of English people don't like winning if it's a result of cheating or unfair tactics, and lots of us don't even like winning if the victory is undeserved.
But even those of us who are the least partisan and the least nationalistic feel some sort of emotional attachment to our national and our city or town teams, and we get enormous amounts of enjoyment when 'our lads' do their jobs as well as they did them last night.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/09/world-cup-qualifier-england-croatia
It's the women's turn this afternoon – 5.00pm BBC2 – England v Germany – European Nations Final.
Bafana Bafana? Crazy name, crazy guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_national_football_team
-----------------------------------
PS Try to record the sounds you make (by using some mechanical or electronic means) as you read the following quotes, because I guarantee you will never laugh so much again in your entire life. If anyone ever doubts the power of words and language to affect our moods – here's the proof. Have some tissues handy to dry your eyes. Do NOT read this if you're in your office, supposedly working. But DO make a recording of your laughter the first time you read it because nothing's ever as funny the second time around.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Palms/6687/managers.html
---------------------------------------
Life's Little Delights
Yesterday on the Today programme there was a discussion about what delights us in our day to day lives. Oxzen had always been a strong believer that the capacity and the ability to experience delight is a strong marker of spiritual intelligence. It's the little things . . .
Here's a description of the book called Delight that JB Priestley first published in 1949 – taken from the Amazon website -
“In the years following the Second World War, there didn't seem much to smile about, but as JB Priestley illustrated in the classic "1949 Delight", there are many joys to be found in even the simplest things. This charming book comprises a series of short essays, which all depict a simple pleasure - the smallest things in life that Priestley delighted in at that bleak time - a notion that chimes perfectly with the current national mood. Just some of the simple things Priestley enjoyed include; fountains; a walk in a pine wood; a new box of matches; Sunday papers in the country; reading in bed about foul weather; suddenly doing nothing and waking to smell bacon . . .
Priestley's sense of humor and literary flare are in evidence on every page. Each self-contained essay is a joy to read and will no doubt bring a little 'delight' to the reader - just as Priestley originally intended sixty years ago. In 'timeless mornings' Priestley muses, 'There is one kind of morning in early summer that is for me very special, the most delightful of all mornings. The sun is up and blazing somewhere but not visible yet down here, where there is a lot of gold mist about and the birds are singing from lost thickets.' The new 60th anniversary edition of "Delight" contains the full, unabridged text of over one hundred of Priestley's personal joys and pleasures.”
On the Today programme Alexei Sayle, the one and only, the wonderful, said he delights in re-reading old copies of guides to restaurants and bars that no longer exist.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delight-J-B-Priestley/dp/1905080670
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/j-b-priestley/delight.htm
http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/07092009/19/paxman-brand-reveal-delights.html
-------------------------------
Rapport
I have a new theory that the secret of his success is the 'rapport' that Capello has developed with his players, and it's also what readers have with a writer like Priestly, or whoever their favourite authors happen to be. To have rapport with someone doesn't mean you have to like or admire that individual. You may have reservations about them as an individual, and you may even dislike some aspects of their behaviour or their ideas. But what you do have is the ability to be on their wavelength, and to be able to communicate or empathise from a basis of shared assumptions about life or about the nature of the task you're working on, or whatever.
To experience 'flow' is hard enough as an individual. For two or more people working together to experience it simultaneously whilst engaged in a particular project, or activity, or game, is almost impossible unless you have rapport. I suspect that what great coaches can do is build rapport, between themselves and others, and between other individuals.
It's a shared sense of what's right and what's wrong, what's effective and what's not, when to do something, and when not. It's part instinct, part empathy, part logic, part knowledge, part understanding, and part intuition. We need rapport that's both inner and outer, within oneself and with others. It's a coming together in three dimensions. It's harmony and resonance, like voices in a choir or strings on an instrument.
Or players on a pitch. England's play last night had a 'flow' to it. They're finally starting to play as a team whose members have a proper rapport. After years of failing to play well together, people like Lampard, Gerrard, Lennon and Rooney are beginning to 'gel' and harmonise. It's partly down to experience, and partly down to the consistent messages and sets of beliefs and understandings that a good coach or manager is able to instil. It's the fine tuning as well as the correct choice of strings, instruments or players. Without rapport and flow nothing is achieved. You can have great skills and individual flair, but without rapport you tend to go nowhere.
--------------------------------------
Obama and his Congregation
Like a priest talking to his parishioners Barack Obama yesterday met with, and spoke to, the Congressmen and women and the Senators of the House of Representatives who may or may not be willing to vote for his health care proposals. It seems he made a great speech, or delivered a great sermon, whichever way you prefer to look at it. It seems like a great effort to establish, or re-establish, some rapport with the teams that must function properly together if anything is going to be achieved, and if the country is to make any progress towards becoming more civilised and properly democratic. The country voted for change. Will it be allowed to have it?
30 million Americans can't even get health insurance, let alone are able to afford it. 46 million of them have no health insurance whatsoever.
Check out clips of his speech here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-address
“We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”
Full text of the speech here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-reform-speech-full-text
Michael Tomasky's blog on the speech:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-big-speech
Tons of comments on it already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
-------------------------------------------
Other Random Musings
Abdullah Abdullah
In case you haven't been paying attention, this is the name of the hapless guy who lost out in this week's election for the presidency of Afghanistan. How lucky is he! However, he's now complaining that the vote, and the count, were fixed. Some people just don't know when to shut the fuck up and just be grateful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Abdullah
I'm always fascinated by these guys with double names, like Boutros Boutros-Ghali – people so good they name them twice. Imagine Obama Obama, or Barack Barack. Which would it be?
Brown Brown. Cameron Cameron.
I remember Billy Connelly once making a comment about posh people in Scotland having surnames as first names. Like Cameron.
This naming business is really bizarre. What happens to people, that they want to actually change their names? The most famous examples are when people change their religions, or suddenly adopt a religion. On the other hand, why should we stayed lumbered with names we don't like?
Oxzen Oxzen. Definitely a ring to it.
John Cooper Clark
I think I wrote about JCC some time ago, and yesterday I came across a poem of his on Spotify that you should listen to if you ever get so angry with someone you want to beat them up and call them a twat. It's called Twat. Just type Twat in the Spotify search box.
http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/twat.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5QMT-JUt4
Dion, Dion
I know I've mentioned Dion before, but I'm going to put in another plug for King of the New York Streets because I think it's possibly the best anti-drug song ever written. It's not didactic – it just sets out what it feels like to be someone living a coke-fuelled life, thinking he's the boss and the head honcho of his neighbourhood, or whatever, and ends with a blank statement - “This attitude comes from cocaine lies ”- the delusions of that particular drug. The refrain goes, “I was only sixteen years, so what could I have known . . . . ?”
The very best thing about the track is that it ROCKS. You want to listen to it on account of the great rhythm and the driving groove, plus the great vocals. Catch it on Spotify and YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYT3DoMOPU Steve Cropper's wearing the same sweater he wore on the Booker T/Green Onions video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOCW8brdBaE&feature=related
The lyrics are hard to find on the Internet, but you can see them here:
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/05/layer-156-musical-interlude-vision-for.html
http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/2009/05/dion-king-of-new-york-streets.html
http://www.diondimucci.com/main.html
http://www.diondimucci.com/king_albums/dm_notes.html – a great piece of rock n roll writing by Dave Marsh. Read it at your leisure.
Dave Marsh
Here's another great example of his writing – about Springsteen:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sLJZ84jaxhsC&pg=PA518&lpg=PA518&dq=%22dave+marsh%22+%2B+dion&source=bl&ots=gimIMO0Xpd&sig=xdH7E24gFbIwsLfxpQfgWSvFRA4&hl=en&ei=2OqoStDUEOaZjAf22-GCCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false
“Marsh is also a member of the National Advisory Board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Marsh
http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarsh_1001.htm - The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.
This man has TASTE! Feel the rapport.
.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Layer 75 Sport with EQ, SQ, Maturity, Imagination and Creativity.
.
“I imagine that in boxing, going from the amateur ranks to live with the professionals must be a bit like leaving primary school for secondary school. Suddenly you’ve left a world where everyone is looking out for you and trying to build your confidence, and entered instead a place filled with people who exhibit a baffling and frankly scary level of evil and malice (and yes, that is just the PE teachers).” - Harry Pearson in the Guardian, writing about Amir Khan’s first-round knockout.
Now there may well be those who’s experience of PE teachers is much more positive, but the point is well made by the wonderful Harry P.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/12/jamesdegale.boxing
Scary levels of evil and malice are becoming normal in the everyday lives of many teenagers, both in school and out. The only question for most kids is how to defend themselves when attacked. To use a knife or not to use a knife - that is the question. Though there are those who prefer something with a longer reach, like a baseball bat or a ‘samurai’ sword.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On a much more positive note, the teenager who grabbed the news headlines last week was Theo Walcott, who played brilliantly and scored three goals against a team rated 5th in the world. But what was most impressive about Walcott was the way he spoke to the TV interviewer after the match. It was such a delight listening to a young footballer, of all people, speaking with incredible poise, maturity, intelligence and modesty. No clichés, no gobbledygook, no stumbling over words, no mangling of syntax or struggling to speak in sentences. How does he do it?
The key words, for his interview, as well as his play on the pitch, are intelligence and maturity. These are not qualities we expect of British footballers. Though they also apply to that other sporting prodigy who recently burst onto the scene from nowhere - Lewis Hamilton.
These two guys need to be case studies for every teenager who aspires to be a decent human being, and hasn’t already embarked on a lifetime of evil and malice. How did they come to be so balanced, so thoughtful, so level-headed, so inspirational in their attitudes?
It’s clearly not just the money and the professional support that’s been helpful. Every professional footballer has more money than he knows what to do with, and can afford to hire an army of life coaches, media coaches, therapists, PR consultants, etc. No, there’s an X factor, and it’s to do with intelligence and maturity.
And by ‘intelligence’ we’re not just talking IQ, though these guys probably have that in abundance too. We’re talking about high levels of spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence and social intelligence. We need to know how they came to have such high levels, and learn lessons that can be applied to the rest of the teenage population.
They also have dedication, imagination and high degrees of creativity. Remember David Pleat’s plea for English football to focus on the need for creativity and imagination, and not just keep banging on about fitness, effort, passion, speed, stamina, etc?
It’s an interesting question whether the new England manager has shown high degrees of creativity and imagination. Surely it’s a no-brainer, totally bloody obvious in fact, that Walcott, given his talents and his speed, and given how important he’ll be in the next World Cup, should be in the team?
Likewise Rooney - the new Peter Beardsley? - able to make as well as take chances, in every sense of the word. Beardsley was another footballer who showed creative intelligence as well as skill, plus modesty and good judgment. Rooney could yet be shaping up in these departments, and given his ratio of goals to games - 1 in 3, which isn’t at all bad given the crap support he’s been given, especially as a lone ‘spearhead’ - he’s another obvious pick.
So is Joe Cole, obviously another talented youth prodigy, who, for all his ego and rashness early on, has surely shown time and again that he’s a natural goal poacher as well as a creative goal-maker, and ought to be in the team, every time.
Where Capello seems to stand out is in reaching the understanding that the team (every team) also needs a big, brave, patient, intelligent front man who can both distract the two central defenders and drag them out of position AND lay on goals for the smaller, more mobile guys who are hopefully buzzing around him. Heskey is a master of that role. I’ve also had a longstanding liking in that role for Crouch, who, for all his physical oddness, has shown himself to have great skills, intelligence, creativity and imagination. His goalscoring record is also exceptional, even if he’s scored most heavily against weak teams. The point with Crouch is that he’s also been let down by lack of proper support and suffered from role confusion.
At this point the obsession with ‘formations’ needs to be ditched. Talking about formations is what pundits love to do, because it fills up time and column inches. But it’s crap, and has been since it got started in the 50’s and 60’s: 3-2-5, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, etc. That stuff makes for static thinking and static play on the pitch, and any game that’s played at high speed cannot, by definition, be static. Imagination, creativity and the element of surprise, all other things being equal, win the game every time.
The Dutch showed this decades ago, and ‘total football’ was nothing more than getting rid of stupid ideas about fixed formations, though having talented and creative players clearly helped.
The current England team arguably need only two conventional midfield players - guys who can hold the ball, switch the direction of play and screen the defence. People like Gerrard, Lampard and Hargreaves can do that stuff, and are also capable of springing forward and scoring goals.
The thing that wins games is having a scary attack, and getting those scary guys as near as possible to the opposition goal as often as possible. Sure, Walcott, Cole and Rooney can chase back and support the midfield with marking and harassment, but their main instinct has to be to get up the field, into the box and along the wings. And be able to shoot and score, which they obviously can.
As for the defence - what’s the point of keeping 4 guys back when most of the time you’re pinning the opposition back in their half or in midfield? I guess we’re stuck with Ferdinand and Terry - but Cole as well? Brown, I have to admit has improved markedly, and is now showing that he can break forward as well as Micah Richards does, who I reckon is a very talented player that has done very well for England.
Ashley Cole used to be capable of making speedy, timely and skillful forward breaks, but he’s become erratic and considerably slower in thought and action, probably because he’s distracted and under-motivated a lot of the time. I’d drop him for good.
Against poor to average teams Richards and Brown should position themselves mainly in midfield with a brief to stay there as much as possible, and get down the wings as much as possible. I might even tell Gerrard he has to play that role - a kind of penetrative fullback cum wingback with a brief to attack but also defend soundly when the other team come forward.
So - in terms of a ‘formation’ I’d suggest a fluid 2-4-3-1 or 2-4-4, with only the two centre backs seen as out and out defenders, plus the goalie, obviously, but let’s not go there.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lack of SQ and EQ has also been vary apparent in places like Newcastle recently. This was very well remarked on in Louise Taylor’s recent column in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/11/newcastleunited
“Only connect. EM Forster used this phrase as an epigraph to Howards End and it is a theme that also runs through another of his fabulous novels, A Passage to India. Reporting on the muddle, mistrust and multiple fractures in communications at Newcastle United last week the thought struck me that had those books been made compulsory reading on Tyneside, and at West Ham too, Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley might not have tendered their resignations.”
“Unfortunately, though, in an era when clubs spend thousands on communications departments, their ego-laden, money and point-scoring obsessed senior employees frequently prove spectacularly bad at connecting with each other.”
“If a list of compulsory reading for 21st-century football men had been placed on club desks everyone might have realised that the subplots of Forster's books centre on the way unpleasantness inevitably flows from a failure to compromise.”
“As Mark Bright admitted when launching a scheme to encourage football fans to read, fiction really can prompt lateral thinking. "Reading helps you see the bigger picture," insisted Bright. "If I was still a player I'd take an hour out of each day and get myself to the library." What a Wise idea.”
Very well said, Louise.
.
“I imagine that in boxing, going from the amateur ranks to live with the professionals must be a bit like leaving primary school for secondary school. Suddenly you’ve left a world where everyone is looking out for you and trying to build your confidence, and entered instead a place filled with people who exhibit a baffling and frankly scary level of evil and malice (and yes, that is just the PE teachers).” - Harry Pearson in the Guardian, writing about Amir Khan’s first-round knockout.
Now there may well be those who’s experience of PE teachers is much more positive, but the point is well made by the wonderful Harry P.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/12/jamesdegale.boxing
Scary levels of evil and malice are becoming normal in the everyday lives of many teenagers, both in school and out. The only question for most kids is how to defend themselves when attacked. To use a knife or not to use a knife - that is the question. Though there are those who prefer something with a longer reach, like a baseball bat or a ‘samurai’ sword.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On a much more positive note, the teenager who grabbed the news headlines last week was Theo Walcott, who played brilliantly and scored three goals against a team rated 5th in the world. But what was most impressive about Walcott was the way he spoke to the TV interviewer after the match. It was such a delight listening to a young footballer, of all people, speaking with incredible poise, maturity, intelligence and modesty. No clichés, no gobbledygook, no stumbling over words, no mangling of syntax or struggling to speak in sentences. How does he do it?
The key words, for his interview, as well as his play on the pitch, are intelligence and maturity. These are not qualities we expect of British footballers. Though they also apply to that other sporting prodigy who recently burst onto the scene from nowhere - Lewis Hamilton.
These two guys need to be case studies for every teenager who aspires to be a decent human being, and hasn’t already embarked on a lifetime of evil and malice. How did they come to be so balanced, so thoughtful, so level-headed, so inspirational in their attitudes?
It’s clearly not just the money and the professional support that’s been helpful. Every professional footballer has more money than he knows what to do with, and can afford to hire an army of life coaches, media coaches, therapists, PR consultants, etc. No, there’s an X factor, and it’s to do with intelligence and maturity.
And by ‘intelligence’ we’re not just talking IQ, though these guys probably have that in abundance too. We’re talking about high levels of spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence and social intelligence. We need to know how they came to have such high levels, and learn lessons that can be applied to the rest of the teenage population.
They also have dedication, imagination and high degrees of creativity. Remember David Pleat’s plea for English football to focus on the need for creativity and imagination, and not just keep banging on about fitness, effort, passion, speed, stamina, etc?
It’s an interesting question whether the new England manager has shown high degrees of creativity and imagination. Surely it’s a no-brainer, totally bloody obvious in fact, that Walcott, given his talents and his speed, and given how important he’ll be in the next World Cup, should be in the team?
Likewise Rooney - the new Peter Beardsley? - able to make as well as take chances, in every sense of the word. Beardsley was another footballer who showed creative intelligence as well as skill, plus modesty and good judgment. Rooney could yet be shaping up in these departments, and given his ratio of goals to games - 1 in 3, which isn’t at all bad given the crap support he’s been given, especially as a lone ‘spearhead’ - he’s another obvious pick.
So is Joe Cole, obviously another talented youth prodigy, who, for all his ego and rashness early on, has surely shown time and again that he’s a natural goal poacher as well as a creative goal-maker, and ought to be in the team, every time.
Where Capello seems to stand out is in reaching the understanding that the team (every team) also needs a big, brave, patient, intelligent front man who can both distract the two central defenders and drag them out of position AND lay on goals for the smaller, more mobile guys who are hopefully buzzing around him. Heskey is a master of that role. I’ve also had a longstanding liking in that role for Crouch, who, for all his physical oddness, has shown himself to have great skills, intelligence, creativity and imagination. His goalscoring record is also exceptional, even if he’s scored most heavily against weak teams. The point with Crouch is that he’s also been let down by lack of proper support and suffered from role confusion.
At this point the obsession with ‘formations’ needs to be ditched. Talking about formations is what pundits love to do, because it fills up time and column inches. But it’s crap, and has been since it got started in the 50’s and 60’s: 3-2-5, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, etc. That stuff makes for static thinking and static play on the pitch, and any game that’s played at high speed cannot, by definition, be static. Imagination, creativity and the element of surprise, all other things being equal, win the game every time.
The Dutch showed this decades ago, and ‘total football’ was nothing more than getting rid of stupid ideas about fixed formations, though having talented and creative players clearly helped.
The current England team arguably need only two conventional midfield players - guys who can hold the ball, switch the direction of play and screen the defence. People like Gerrard, Lampard and Hargreaves can do that stuff, and are also capable of springing forward and scoring goals.
The thing that wins games is having a scary attack, and getting those scary guys as near as possible to the opposition goal as often as possible. Sure, Walcott, Cole and Rooney can chase back and support the midfield with marking and harassment, but their main instinct has to be to get up the field, into the box and along the wings. And be able to shoot and score, which they obviously can.
As for the defence - what’s the point of keeping 4 guys back when most of the time you’re pinning the opposition back in their half or in midfield? I guess we’re stuck with Ferdinand and Terry - but Cole as well? Brown, I have to admit has improved markedly, and is now showing that he can break forward as well as Micah Richards does, who I reckon is a very talented player that has done very well for England.
Ashley Cole used to be capable of making speedy, timely and skillful forward breaks, but he’s become erratic and considerably slower in thought and action, probably because he’s distracted and under-motivated a lot of the time. I’d drop him for good.
Against poor to average teams Richards and Brown should position themselves mainly in midfield with a brief to stay there as much as possible, and get down the wings as much as possible. I might even tell Gerrard he has to play that role - a kind of penetrative fullback cum wingback with a brief to attack but also defend soundly when the other team come forward.
So - in terms of a ‘formation’ I’d suggest a fluid 2-4-3-1 or 2-4-4, with only the two centre backs seen as out and out defenders, plus the goalie, obviously, but let’s not go there.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lack of SQ and EQ has also been vary apparent in places like Newcastle recently. This was very well remarked on in Louise Taylor’s recent column in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/11/newcastleunited
“Only connect. EM Forster used this phrase as an epigraph to Howards End and it is a theme that also runs through another of his fabulous novels, A Passage to India. Reporting on the muddle, mistrust and multiple fractures in communications at Newcastle United last week the thought struck me that had those books been made compulsory reading on Tyneside, and at West Ham too, Kevin Keegan and Alan Curbishley might not have tendered their resignations.”
“Unfortunately, though, in an era when clubs spend thousands on communications departments, their ego-laden, money and point-scoring obsessed senior employees frequently prove spectacularly bad at connecting with each other.”
“If a list of compulsory reading for 21st-century football men had been placed on club desks everyone might have realised that the subplots of Forster's books centre on the way unpleasantness inevitably flows from a failure to compromise.”
“As Mark Bright admitted when launching a scheme to encourage football fans to read, fiction really can prompt lateral thinking. "Reading helps you see the bigger picture," insisted Bright. "If I was still a player I'd take an hour out of each day and get myself to the library." What a Wise idea.”
Very well said, Louise.
.
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