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

War & peace

25 September 2024

6 min read

How Ukraine reckons with its reality

From Kyiv's coffee shops to the front line.

Mark Meynell

Mark Meynell is the author and minister.

A woman squats and touches a war memorial

War memorial in Bucha.

How on earth it came up I have no idea, but I vividly remember chatting with my grandmother about the ‘Phoney War’ of 1939. I can’t have been much older than 10. It’s not that I was especially inquisitive about history, nor that I had the presence of mind to ask for stories from her extraordinary life. How I wish I’d done that with all four of my grandparents. But my hunch is that it was prompted by sitting in the garden on a glorious summer’s day. We were probably shelling peas or peeling potatoes or something—she always got people staying to do jobs.

She was reminiscing about how weird those months in mid-1939 were, in particular remembering how lovely the summer had been, far brighter and drier than normal. Even after the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September (thus triggering Britain and France to declare war two days later), the weather remained good. A sense of war’s inevitability had hovered throughout 1939, so even after Chamberlain’s famous ‘final note’ was rejected, nothing much changed. At least, not for ordinary Britons. Life went on. It would take many months before the conflict came all too close to home.

I couldn’t help but think about this during my visit to Kyiv and Lviv earlier this month. The difference, of course, is that there was nothing phoney about Russia’s 2022 invasion or the horrors inflicted on eastern Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea. But for the majority, routines continued uninterrupted. As they must.

For example, assuming the worst, I had contacted several Ukrainian friends offering to bring any scarce or unavailable items from Britain. No one took me up on it; it was unnecessary, they all said. After wandering through both cities, it was obvious why. Although trade will undoubtedly have been slower than before the war, shops seemed well stocked with all the necessities and not a few luxuries.

Then on my final morning, I was quietly sipping a cappuccino in Lviv’s historic Rynok Square when the air-raid sirens suddenly cranked up into their now familiar whine. Being kept awake by Kyiv’s sirens had been a new experience for me (a mark of our Western privilege that we have avoided all-out war on our soil for decades). But this was my first daytime alert. It was even accompanied by booming Ukrainian announcements, although the advice was inevitably lost on me. As it was on all around me, who seemed assiduously to ignore it. The few mid-morning pedestrians—few tourists come here— maintained their ambling pace unchanged; the taciturn waiter patiently took orders at the next table; a middle-aged businessman on the square continued his negotiations on the phone while gesticulating with his briefcase. So naturally, I kept sipping.

This was not because the sirens cried wolf. Just 10 days before my visit, Lviv had suffered one of the worst air attacks of the war, with 7 killed, over 60 injured, as well as the destruction of schools and historic buildings. Moreover, I met a friend for lunch an hour later who told me that some man-sized drones had attacked his side of Lviv and he saw one or two shot down. So it was all real enough. What was everyone thinking?

Those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance.

Ignoring reality

T. S. Eliot famously observed that "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." So perhaps that was what was going on here. After two and a half years of war, I can quite imagine exhaustion and resignation to what was going on. So it just gets ignored. Ordinary life must go on. After all, only a small proportion of the population is actively engaged in the war; the rest, if they haven’t already left, must try to keep calm and carry on. In fact, men aged between 18-60 are unable to leave at all without the necessary papers and these are hard to come by. Perhaps the only way, then, is to avoid thinking altogether. On a beautiful day, once autumn has begun to temper Ukraine’s oppressive summer heat, sustaining the illusion is simple. Life carries on.

Of course, it can’t last. Every single person I spoke to had family or friends at the front; some had already been killed. The destruction caused by air raids brought a distant conflict onto people’s doorsteps. However, it was driving through the pleasant Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, both of which I had previously visited several times, that reinforced the impossibility of ignoring reality. Bucha is now emblematic of the invasions very worst atrocities, from when Russian forces had Kyiv almost entirely surrounded before being pushed east. Locals were rounded up and slaughtered, with the bodies of several hundred civilians later found to have died from bullet wounds rather than shrapnel. But as we drove through, it was impossible to conceive of those horrors. Apart from anything, the weather was so lovely. Atrocities don’t occur on beautiful days… or in lovely places… surely?

Persevering amid reality

What impressed me most in those areas was the speed of the rebuilding work. Entire shopping malls and neighbourhoods had been razed. But after only twelve months or so, a memorial to Bucha’s 500 dead had already been erected. As we drove through, major construction projects were underway, with multiple cranes towering over rapidly rising apartment blocks and retail parks.

These are not signs of reality ignored but faced. These are signs of gritted hope. So it struck me that those who keep going amid a siren’s whine are not perhaps ignoring it but taking calculated risks in their perseverance. Just as it is unwise, if not impossible, to live on a permanent adrenaline rush, so one cannot always exist in flight or fight mode indefinitely. It is simply that in wartime, risk thresholds change. Human beings are resilient and adaptable. They endure the most extraordinary setbacks and conditions.

So, to be with Ukrainian friends in my limited, deficient expression of solidarity, has been inspiring. No one I met had any illusions about the realities of Ukraine’s current plight (especially with a harsh winter looming as Russia systematically destroys power stations). But still they persevere.

Seeking deeper perspectives of reality

However, Eliot did not primarily refer to bearing the reality of the mundane. As the novelist Jeanette Winterson explained, Eliot was identifying how little twentieth century society (that of his Waste Land in particular) could bear of spiritual reality. He meant the phenomenon of resistance to a journey towards God or of facing themselves as they stand before God.

However, the horrors of invasion and the nightly anxieties of air raids have put paid to all that. One friend I was glad to see again is Andriy, previously a fairly well-known Ukrainian journalist and now a church pastor. He regularly goes to the frontline as an unofficial chaplain, visiting troops in their camps and the injured in hospital. He was unequivocal. Before the war they would undoubtedly have been shrugged off. But now, he has not met a single soldier who is uninterested in the things of God and eternity. War has forced them to face their mortality and Andriy has found that most are desperate to talk about little else. These things matter. Even on a beautiful, bright, early autumnal day.