When are football fans and administrators ever going to learn? Demanding better performances from their teams and coaches alone won't help your franchise's cause. And firing coach upon coach upon coach will not miraculously improve the quality of the players in your team. There is usually only one trophy per competition - and if you go through the arithmetic very carefully you will find that this results in only one team being victorious. Every other team then looks to fire their manager for under performing. Lunacy! Take Bafana Bafana for instance. Headline news! Pitso Mosimane axed for a run of 7 games without a win. His players are shit. If anything, he should be raked over the coals for questionable team selection. Now all that's going to happen is the new caretaker coach, Steve Khompela, is going be stuck with the burden of whipping a bunch of lazy, B grade, prima donnas into shape in a matter of days before our next qualifier. If he pulls it off, he'll be hailed as a miracle worker. But he'll get the boot soon enough.
You could stick Di Matteo in charge of this lot - a man who took a floundering Chelsea (admittedly brimming with international superstars, but out of form) to European Champions League success, or Alex Ferguson - the most successful top flight manager in the history of the beautiful game - and they'd still suck. It's like wondering why our darts team didn't do well at the inflatable Olympics! There is no quick fix. Alex Ferguson was one game away from being fired in his first year at Old Trafford. One game! The club decided to stick with him and the last 25 years have been one long procession to lift silverware. Perhaps other clubs could learn a thing or 2 from this approach.
How many times have administrators tinkered with coaching staff after massive success? Jake White? Pieter De Villiers? Pep Guardiolla? Who'd be a coach? It must be the only thing left to do after a professional career in sport if you don't speak well enough to become a bad commentator. At least in South Africa. Where commentating is reserved for sport "stars" no one ever heard of because they only played in B sides. Except Peter Kirsten, who is an actual bone fide great of cricket, but an absolute arse behind a mic. Can you tell I don't have DSTV?
And.Then.There's.The.Anthem. Whilst I personally don't know the full democratic version, it's a disgrace to have to hear of yet another screw up when it comes to what so many hold dear. I think it's a crap anthem, but I don't represent the views of 50 million people. In much the same way that I disagree with most on other forms of music as well. I'm not unpatriotic - in the least - but I'd have thought ripping off a generic African song that wasn't even written here was a bit lame. That all aside, can our beloved sports administrators not stop their manager firing or their political infighting long enough to commission someone to sing our anthem properly. Or even make sure the idiot operating the PA system has the correct copy? I don't like the song and I was embarrassed for a nation when that Rastafarian dude proved to be the only person alive with a worse singing voice than me. Then ol' Ard - bless his cotton socks - made a genuine honest zorch up on live national telly. Cringe. Shame, I actually feel sorry for the bloke. It's not the first time, and certainly won't be the last, that someone forgets lyrics to a song during a performance. And then you got the super uncomfortable sideways glances by our poor hockey girls yesterday as the wrong version was sent blaring through the speakers. Can you imagine The Queen's face if they accidentally powered up the Sex Pistols version during her Jubilee? Heads, my dear readers, would have rolled.
And that's your sports wrap for today. I have to mention the circus that is the IPL, the effect it's having on cricket and the shame that is the South African Cricket Board for shunning tradition by not having a Boxing Day Test this year. Now we've incorporated the "Spicy" in the "Sport". You didn't think I was going to write about Mel C, did you?
NGDG: "Fitness aside, running a half marathon when I was as little as ten pounds heavier was way harder, carrying that weight. To paraphrase Withnail 'landing a plum role for top Italian director. 2 pounds 10 a tit, and a fiver for his arse.' "
Spread The Love. Don't Kill Or Replace Heyneke Meyer. Just Yet.
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