It’s spirit that matters, for flag, fans and glory

22 June 10 The Strait Times
by Rohit Brijnath

THE hottest team at the World Cup, if you factor in ranking and surprise, is also the coolest. New Zealand captain Ryan Nelsen, when famously asked about the possibility of a traditional dance before play, replied: ‘Skinny white guys doing the haka! Very intimidating.’

But the skinny white guys are special: They have ensured that ‘Kiwi footballer’ is not quite an oxymoron. Their talent may not glitter, their technical skills may not gleam, still they have a shine to them. It is a spirit that can’t be measured, but a spirit that can be seen.

It is these skinny white guys who England and France, head down in penitence, should go and see. Guys, they should ask, we might have footballing history, we are burdened with louder expectations, but can you remind our teams, swollen with swagger, about football’s spirit. Because we seem to have lost it.

Spirit in sport is like some ancient tonic, it lifts the team and glues them together. It defies easy definition, but we can feel it in a team’s driven body language, in the strength of their runs in the 89th minute when muscles mutiny, in the way they slap a teammate’s buttock in support after an error, in the way, especially, that teams hold together even in distress.

It is the zest of men who put team above individual, a group of athletes who disavow pettiness and politics, who do not fall apart like cheap machinery at the first signs of stress. Spirit is not about winning, it is about the giving of the self to a cause.

Take an example from outside football, from Game 4 of basketball’s NBA finals. It is the fourth quarter, the Boston Celtic’s primary players are benched. They don’t complain. They applaud their replacements.

Later, their coach, Doc Rivers says: ‘They were fine. They were cheering... they were begging me to keep guys in. ‘Don’t take them out! Don’t take them out!’ It was great. That’s the loudest I’ve seen our bench, and it was the starters cheering from the bench.’

The Celtics won the game.

Spirit is Germany at the World Cup, it is 10 men playing as if they were 15. Spirit is the USA surging back from 0-2 down against Slovenia.

Spirit is Lionel Messi, one moment pirouetting in his rival’s box, next moment tackling in his own box. His inspiration can lift his team, but his perspiration binds them. To see the world’s finest player sweat is to embarrass any teammate into action.

Messi is our standard, he carries no offensive air, no stench of arrogance. He is genius worn lightly, he comes to play not to politic, his spirit is worn like a halo.

Alone he makes the French team look like spoilt, has-been heroes whose failure is everyone’s fault but theirs. It is football without dignity from the great nation of Platini and Fontaine.

Spirit is definitely not walking out of practice at a World Cup as France did. Spirit is not abusing your coach, however ineffective he may be. Spirit is swallowing complaint and playing furiously, playing for each other, for fans, for a flag, for pride.

Sulking is what 11-year-olds do when given detention in school. Not footballers living in luxurious accommodation. Want to protest? Wear a black armband, sign a petition, just get over it.

Spirit isn’t mutiny, it isn’t a rebellion as is rumoured John Terry was attempting. An England team stung by calamity was a perfect opportunity for Terry to advertise a united side, not suggest a fragmented one. Immediately, instead of answers to a team’s woes being found, distracting questions arose about a former captain’s motivations. A man of the hour he has been, but now he wasn’t.

Spirit is taking criticism in your stride as Wayne Rooney might want to remember, after castigating booing fans. Yes, spectators can be fickle, and stadiums unfriendly, but booing is also a fundamental sporting right. Not everything can be worship.

Fans, waiting for four years for a Cup, ordinary people dipping deep into their passion and their wallets to travel far, can shrug off losing. It is a lack of spirited effort that affronts them.

It doesn’t matter either if England coach Fabio Capello is wrong, if he should be playing Joe Cole, if his policy of telling players too late whether they are playing sucks. Fact is, even the wrong 11, when representing a nation, have to have the right attitude and play at a 100 per cent, at full, committed tilt.

Spirit is also the coach’s job. Sport is essentially a democratic activity, but coaches are like benevolent dictators. Like a conductor with his orchestra, the coach decides the footballing music his team will attempt, he selects his performers. But no fine music is found without spirit, without the conductor setting the mood for a collective tilt at greatness.

The coach must challenge temperamental heroes, stroke egos and bruise them. In India, a cricket coach once grabbed a player by the throat; John Wooden, the late basketball coach, rarely used an expression harsher than ‘goodness gracious’. It takes all methods to discover harmony.

It is a complicated dance where feet are constantly stepped on and Raymond Domenech, the French coach, has lousy footwork. Spirit he has failed to build, dissension he has let fester. He is not attuned to his men like the Lakers’ Phil Jackson often seems to be, he is not adroit in managing men without indulging them as Alex Ferguson appears.

Spirit is also Capello’s challenge as muttering in, and about, his team rises in volume. Certainly he must listen to Terry, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, for they wear the boots, their instincts speak to them. But listening does not mean appeasing, being flexible does not mean including a player to satisfy sullen stars.

Eventually, a fine balance must be found and wisdom discovered in the words of the American general, George S. Patton: ‘Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.’

But eventually Capello does not play. His men play. Well-paid men. Revered men. Armani-clad men.

Spirit must come from them, they cannot look for blame, or find excuse, but search for a courage within. It is how heroes are forged. The bulldog spirit, they must know, is an English phrase. It is an old one. Now they have little time to prove it still lives.

Spirit is going down to train in the relentless rain, rowing your best in the 3rd set of fartlek, and shouting encouragement to team mates even though you can hardly breathe. Sunday Dragons, I am proud to row with you. -- FJ