Article

Character

Comment

Football

Sport

16 July 2024

6 min read

Why England lost the Final

Emerson Csorba explores why love is a game-changer when it comes to winning.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

Gareth Southgate congratulating the team

So, England reached another final which ended in crushing disappointment. Despite their ability to grind out wins deep into Euros and World Cup tournaments due to the savvy approach of now ex-coach Gareth Southgate, the team risks a similar fate as it looks toward the World Cup.

Gareth Southgate resigned as England manager having lost two successive Euro finals. And maybe there’s a reason. His style is habitually defensive, cautious and careful. There is a sense in watching England that they fear failure under the weight of expectation, the fear leading to a strange restraint. There was a caution in their play, the potential of their extraordinary players limited rather than unlocked. When they equalized in the final, they inexplicably failed to capitalize, sitting back and letting Spain come at them again, leading to Oyarzabal’s winning goal.

It is not surprising that England were overtaken in the final minutes of the Euros by an opponent that went for it. Spain played with more intent, winning the tournament with fewer stars than England, but with heart embodied in captain and player of the tournament Rodri.

Compare, however a lesser-known football nation in a less well-reported competition over these past weeks.

Little was expected of Canada’s Men’s National Team upon entering their first “Copa America” football tournament in late June. However, led by former Leeds United coach Jesse Marsch, Canada made the semifinals – a remarkable run that had much of the ice hockey-loving nation turning their television sets to football.

It took the eventual champions and world number-one Argentina and its star Lionel Messi to knock out the Canadians in a closely fought game. Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni called the Canadians “a very good team that’s made it hard for everyone.”

When all was said and done, Canada advanced further into the tournament than Mexico, the United States, Chile and even titans Brazil.

What was behind Canada’s recent Copa success? And what can be learnt from coach Jesse Marsch – and other similar coaches – in unlocking the potential of their teams?

The answer, modelled by Marsch but seen in other select coaches’ approaches, is found in a quality not often mentioned in the world of sport: it is nothing less than Love, and the courage it produces.

A quality which is not often mentioned in the world of sport: Love, and the courage it produces.

Certain coaches’ evident love for their team allows players to tap into new reserves of energy, taking risks despite fear of failure. These teams play with courage, striving to win, rather than sitting back. They leave everything on the field. This love keeps teams on the offensive, their opponents on the defensive. Such courage is important in modern football, which values a high-energy, attacking style.

Modern sport rewards teams who display speed, directness and versatility. Just as the smartphone has sped up the pace of modern communication and life, rewarding those capable of communicating with large audiences instantaneously, football and other sports reward those with quickness and directness in their style of play.

For instance, in American football, the “quarterback” position of previous decades needed only throw the football effectively. These days, the best quarterbacks must throw and run. Speed, directness and versatility are demanded of the modern quarterback, mirroring the overall speeding-up of society and their ability to reach people instantaneously in an increasingly interconnected world.

Canada, adapting to these changes, brought speed to every match. Marsch’s enthusiasm on the sideline was clear throughout the tournament. Canada provided opponents with little room to breathe, keeping on the front foot from the opening kick to the final whistle. The team was rewarded accordingly, despite their inexperience and lack of stature. The same was true of the dynamic Georgia team in the Euros, who humbled the mighty Portugal 2-0 in the group stages.

Marsh recognised Canada’s potential when others didn’t. Following a quarterfinal win over Venezuela, arguably the most dominant team in the tournament up to that point, with the stadium packing 48,000 Venezuelans compared to Canada’s 1,000 fans, Marsch highlighted his players’ untapped ability. He did this throughout the tournament, and his players fed on this awareness of their potential.

Marsch’s own story is one of challenge. He was fired in 2023 by Leeds United and then rejected by the United States Men’s National Team. Despite his track record and promise, he was overlooked in favour of lesser candidates. These rejections provided Marsch with a deepened belief in his own ability and unique style. This inner strength in turn provided his players with courage in hostile matches throughout Copa America.

Reflecting on the Copa America success, Marsch said: “I want to get back to loving the game that I love, and this team has helped me find that, and I’m very thankful for that.” This love helped the Canadians play with courage, tapping into energy levels to underpin this courage.

Few coaches achieve this – but the results are evident for those who do.

In the English Premier League, Jurgen Klopp, Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola are often criticised for their exuberance on the field, but each coach clearly loves their team. This translates to teams that do not easily give up, responding quickly to setbacks.

St Paul famously wrote: “Love always hopes, always perseveres.” When they are bound together by a sense of love, it enables a person, or a team to push forward, never giving up hope, always pressing for the win.

Jurgen Klopp loved the city of Liverpool and demonstrated this through his unforgettable hugs of his players and on-field energy. His players fed off this love and routinely went for it. Liverpool launched long ball after long ball, with fullback Trent Alexander-Arnold one of the best long passers in the Premier League, game in and game out, winning the Premier League for the first time in decades and even reaching the pinnacle of the Champions League.

Mikel Arteta inherited and rebuilt an Arsenal that had fallen from previous heights. One moment stands out in this rebuilding process. Following a shock loss to Everton at the midway point in the 2022-2023 season, Arteta told the press that he loved his team “even more” than he did previously. Arsenal were unable to unseat Manchester City that year, losing energy in the final weeks of the season. But they took their game to a new level in the following campaign, pushing City to the final day.

Pep Guardiola is the exuberant and intense coach of Manchester City. But look at his captain Rodri, who recently led Spain to Euros glory. Following Spain’s victory, Rodri commented “In sport, as in life, when you leave it all there, you are rewarded.”

Rodri made a similar comment following Man City’s fourth consecutive EPL title, stating that he knew Man City would win the EPL title following Arsenal’s 0-0 draw with City at City’s home stadium the Emirates.

The reason? Arsenal came to achieve a draw – not a victory. They did not demonstrate the heart needed to win the game decisively. They were lacking in love in that match, playing instead not to lose. The difference between these approaches, one focused on winning and the other on not losing, was fear – even if subtle.

The Jewish sage Hillel is well known for saying “If I’m not for me, who will be for me? And if not now, when?” The coaches described above, each demonstrating love, instill in their teams the ability to take risks, playing boldly. This is Hillel’s “if not now, when?”

Love is the vital quality providing players with the courage, to play on the front foot with a view to winning decisively. It is conducive to success in modern football valuing speed. Led by the coach, and spreading through players, it is the difference-maker as the margins between failure and success continue to narrow.

Article

Comment

Mental Health

Poetry

15 October 2024

4 min read

Auden and our anxious age

While the tropes of trauma are still with us, how to not die in our dread?

Jack Nicholson

Jack is a graduate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge and Blackfriars, University of Oxford. He works in local government.

An outdoor vigil is lit by people holding up mobile phone lights.

Oxford's peace vigil.

BBC News.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play . . .

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

This week, we mark the 85th birthday of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘September 1st, 1939’. He describes four solitary drinkers in New York on the cusp of the Second World War. September 1st, 1939: Hitler invades Poland. Those four faces struggle to find meaning in their lives.

In a later, much longer poem of 1947 (first UK edition, 1948) Auden built on this theme, having lived through the War, to identify an ‘Age of Anxiety’. He wrote, ‘We would rather be ruined than changed / We would rather die in our dread / Than climb the cross of the moment / And let our illusions die.’

I have been reflecting on this of late, especially in light of a recent night vigil for peace, remembrance, and unity at Bonn Square, Oxford, where I live. This took place on 7 October, the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023: the darkest day in Jewish history since the time that Auden wrote his poems.

In an Age of Anxiety, Auden wrote, ‘the world needs a wash, and a week off’. The gathering in Oxford was especially poignant because some 250 people chose to go out in the rain, on their Sunday-evening time off, and in the darkness, to hear prayers and readings from different communities. It was as if the world was awash with people coming together.

The Bishop of Oxford the Rt Rev’d Dr Steven Croft said, ‘Our purpose is simply to be together.’ People simply had to do ‘something in the face of the helplessness that we all feel, in the face of these terrible events’. Louise Gordon, co vice president of the Oxford Jewish Congregation, described people ‘clinging to hope’. Imam Monawar Husain stressed that togetherness as such is a ‘symbol’, a symbol of hope.

Symbols abounded. Candles were lit. In ‘September 1st, 1939’, Auden described ‘Ironic points of light’ which

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair,

Show an affirming flame.

The crowd spontaneously joined in with the protest song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’, which was first sung in 1955.

It is striking that so many of the tropes and themes concerning what has gone wrong with the world, from our perspective, were already apparent and received clear expression from 1939 through to the mid- to late-1950s, in terrible events, then in thought, poetry, and protest song, in an age of anxiety.

If there are similarities between Auden’s age and our own, then we should be encouraged by that.

Sociologists described the ‘lonely crowd’ in 1950. This suggests that people seek more approval and acceptance from others as the physical distance between them diminishes and society becomes increasingly geared toward consumption. The capacity to come together for peace, remembrance, and unity becomes far less likely.

Philosopher Max Picard lamented the loss of the ’World of Silence’ in 1952: the capacity to be still. And later, in 1958, the word ‘meritocracy’ was first used to describe a dystopian world in which merit (IQ + effort) reigns, replacing previous relational bonds, a sense of togetherness, exemplified in the gathering in Oxford in 2024.

C. S. Lewis, in Oxford in the late 1950s, identified friendship as a kind of love which is regarded 'in the modern world' as 'quite marginal; not a main course in life's banquet', which is especially true if we bypass the banquet and spend our time at the bar (or, worse, online, at home). Louise Gordon, at the vigil, also spoke of the way in which people were counterculturally 'clasping hands in friendship'.

When sociologists today describe the ‘lonely century’ (Noreena Hertz) or when so many sigh over our inability to sit, or stand, in silence, in some sense at least they have not identified anything new. War crimes are, sadly, all too familiar to us. And recently, the lawyer Stephen Toope identified an ‘age of anxiety’ today.

It is not as simple, however, as saying that we have been anxious for the last seventy years. Auden’s age was also one of creativity of which the Anglosphere has been proud, for instance, around the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948. His generation stared into the abyss. They did not die in their dread.

If there are similarities between Auden’s age and our own, then we should be encouraged by that. Lamentation is as old as love, and the choice is as stark as he put it in his poem 85 years ago: ‘love one another or die’.

The notion of vigil is equally old. Today, vigils are held for peace, remembrance, and unity. In Christian liturgy, however, a vigil is specifically a watch during the night, looking forward to the dawn of a new day. ‘As the night watch looks for the morning’, likewise the people wait for Christ, their saviour.

That silent watch is far removed from the solitary ‘faces along the bar’ who ‘cling to their average day’. Horrible events such as those which took place on September 1st, 1939 or October 7th, 2023 bring people together in common purpose, simply to be together and to cling instead to hope for a better tomorrow.

Anxiety is replaced by hope.

Candles are lit. It may well rain. But song will be sung. And people of good-will, having climbed ‘the cross of the moment’, will show what Auden described: that great ‘affirming flame’.