Is Winning The Most Important Thing In Football?
No football team in any country or any league should start a match without intending to win the game; any other mindset is quite simply not ethical and is damaging to the overall integrity of the sport. Last season, towards the end of the campaign, the closing minutes of Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers’ match were arguably the most boring minutes of the game any football fan of any team has ever witnessed, with both sides happy with the consequences a draw would bring and neither making any efforts to think about bombing forward with the ball.
Although a draw, and the single point that entailed, for Manchester United would have meant winning the title and therefore succeeding in the game in question on the greater scale, while Blackburn were almost guaranteed survival by drawing with the champions elect (even though they risked relegation on the final day of the season anyway), the game failed to be a spectacle or a close competition worthy of paying to watch.
While we’re on this point, it’s worth noting that this year’s Copa America final in South America will feature Uruguay and Paraguay, with one of those teams set to be crowned the champion of football in the continent. How is this related, I hear you cry? Well, it may astound you to hear this, but somehow Paraguay have managed to progress all the way through to the final without winning a single game in regular or extra time. This is not to say that they aren’t playing with the intention of winning, but can you imagine following your national team to a final but not seeing them win a game in normal time? It must be an incredibly odd atmosphere in the dressing room, having that fact hanging over their heads as they gear up for match time.
The group stage brought a goalless draw with Ecuador, a 2-2 draw with Brazil and a 3-3 draw with Venezuela to see them finish third in the group. Goalless draws with Brazil and Venezuela in the knockout stages forced them to penalties in both games, which they won.
In light of that summary, you can see why there is a double-edged sword here; OK, so the players cannot lose, but they almost cannot win, no matter what they try. It is a mindset that can trouble players under pressure in a big final; they know they shouldn’t hold out for the eventuality of penalties but something is stopping them from making the final push to winning in normal time. If they do overcome Uruguay at the penalties stage, though, it will be quite an achievement for a plucky team full of spirit.
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