As I get older, I find myself becoming increasingly reflective. On pretty much everything really, but particularly on my football "career". Mostly re-evaluating how I view the game, and what that means. How it affected my playing days and my coaching days. This is especially enlightening now that I'm no longer involved in football at all. Recently I had a discussion that impressed upon me the stark contrast between my attitude towards the game and that of most people. In some ways, anyway. It's an ideals thing, and relates to how I process and express emotion, I think.
See, for most people, the best players are those who display some level of artistry. Some kind of creativity. The players who excite them. The ones you watch in the hope that you'll see something special. A magical moment, perhaps. That memory that will last for an age. It is something inherently meaningful, and in a way, unique. My idea of magic, in this sense, is very different, apparently. It's more subtle. Probably because I was never a wizard, and I refuse to believe that my presence was without consequence -- we'll get back to that later. I would never be appreciated like those special players no matter how much I wished it... simply because I wasn't exciting. I just wasn't that good.
Instead, I took on the dirty work. I'd do the things that every team needs doing, but most people don't really want to do. The things people take little to no pleasure in. I'd give everything I had for my team. I'd sacrifice myself on the altar of victory for my teammates. I spent hours upon hours, over days, weeks, months... even years, effectively playing catch up. All that time and effort, just to be considered "average". Then I pushed further. Harder and harder. Until I broke, both mentally and physically. More than once. All that to be "a little above average". Without the natural talent of an elite player, my best shot was to work harder than everyone else. Do more than everyone else. I think because of this, on some level, I resented naturally gifted players. Both while I still played, and when I coached.
As a player, I loved the challenge of facing these "elite" players. It was a sort of test of my ideals. I could prove my worth. I was "trash" to them. They were effortlessly excellent, while I remained average despite my ardor. But if I could beat them, in any little way. Get the better of them in a one-on-one confrontation... I would prove myself. They'd have to respect me, right? Well... sometimes that worked out. As a coach, I rarely indulged those characters. I would only truly respect them as footballers if I could see them doing what I would have done. If I could see them putting in work, taking rational decisions that sometimes sacrificed their personal desires to the the benefit of the team. In retrospect, that probably seems like a cold, emotionless way to view a game commonly lauded as passionate and emotional, beautiful and artistic. And in some ways it would appear to be at odds with my descriptions of the game, even. But it's not.
If you're married, and your partner spends all day making your favourite meal, are you going to think less of them (and their efforts) because the resulting dish is not the same quality as if a gourmet, Michelin-starred chef had prepared it? I'd assume not. You'd appreciate the love that drove them to put in such a mammoth effort, surely? When I mentioned this, I was countered with the example of a horrible, knitted sweater that someone's aunt had given them. We make fun of such gifts regularly, but "isn't her effort just as representative of her love?" my friend asked. He's right, it is. And we should acknowledge it in the same way. But we generally don't. Why? Well... we don't see it as requiring the same degree of effort. It seems like Aunt Ethel (or whoever) hasn't worked as hard, because on some level, we have this idea that old ladies are just good at knitting or something like that. Connotations of this perception aside, this is a parallel we can make in football terms. Naturally talented players might actually be working hard but don't look like it sometimes. So the real thing I guess I look for is ostensible effort.
I suspect most people look for something similar in their heroes. Probably because if their heroes are working hard, they can ignore the natural talent bit and aspire. It's the same logic that has people talking about entrepreneurs who "made it" in the business world after starting "from nothing", or millionaires who dropped out of school or college, or got bad grades. Things like that. My mind tells me that's all a smokescreen, and a naturally talented player will always be better than someone like me in the end... but I can't help but try and disprove it anyway. It's that kind of attitude that endears the valiant loser to us. We expect our heroes -- who are projections of our love in some ways -- to give everything. Even when everything is nowhere near enough. Because we can recognise ourselves in a glorious failure. We can recognise our own attempts at becoming heroes.
By extension, I came to realise that this is how I view -- and partially define -- love. In my mind, love requires sacrifice. Without sacrifice on some level, it doesn't seem viable. It seems selfish, which is the opposite of love for others, in the sense that it is love for self only (kind of; again, this is perhaps another discussion). For all the aloofness and detached nature of who I am when I interact with people, I'm a giver at heart. I'm a protector. I like to help. I hate feeling like a burden, like I'm taking more than I give. On the pitch I was the same. If I wasn't creating chances, or successfully defending in some way, I felt like I wasn't doing "enough", like I was a burden to my teammates. I felt like a passenger who wasn't worthy. Same goes for relationships. If I'm not doing things for my partner, I feel like I'm a drain on her in some way. Like I don't deserve to be in her life. Like she could do more and be better off without me.
That overly critical attitude is something I've worked on. The tendency toward extreme overvaluation of utility is evident in my coaching style though, as well as which players I liked most as a child. It's an attitude that is at least partly the result of growing up in an environment where a lack of utility was not a luxury many could afford. Things generally had to have a use to be justified. Everything. Seeing my parents work hard but still not be able to comfortably give me the things a lot of my peers had was a common theme. It became clearer as I aged, and I began to appreciate that struggle, that effort, more and more as a sign that they genuinely cared about me. This spilled over to various other areas of my life.
At times, I felt like an outsiders on teams I played for. The guy who never seemed to receive anything, not even a pass, from the rest of the squad. Only scorn. It was the status of someone whose presence was not valued. Kids will not pass to the "crap" kid. Adults won't either. If they perceived that I would not be able to do anything of value with the ball, they would not pass to me. Simple. It's an attitude that pervades football fandom too. The midfielder whose short sideways passes keep the ball moving and recycles possession to allow his more gifted teammates to make movements and build attacking moves is often criminally overlooked. In some cases derided as useless. I became aware of this and it hardened me. I became colder and more ruthlessly logical in my decision making on the pitch, because if I always chose the option that was most likely to lead to victory, I would become valuable. I just wanted them to love me. Best way to do that was to give them something they wanted: victory.
This only half-worked. Wins came, but not the love. Wins were not even partially attributed to my effort. So when I started coaching, I was acutely aware of this possible problem. I wanted the kids putting in effort to know they were valued. I didn't want them to feel like I had felt. The kid working hard to become a better player? I lionised him. The kid putting in a shift, doing the dirty work so others could live out their fantasista dreams? I stressed her importance to the team. I wanted these players to know, like I never really did despite my suspicions, that they made a difference. That they held value. That I felt their love, and reciprocated. To this day, I think the players who liked me the most were the ones who had never been told they were good players until I did.
In life, this approach also applied. It has led to some awkward relationships, where I'm reluctant to say no -- much like I was as a player; I recall playing out of position on request fairly regularly in an attempt to show that I had value. Sad, I know -- and as a result, it has become increasingly important that I identify people who can acknowledge and appreciate my kind of love. Otherwise I'll end up worse off. Again. I've had terrible stints of employment... I have had terrible miscommunications with women I loved, leading to arguments... I have allowed myself to be manipulated and used... I have lost friends... all because fundamentally, I just wanted to be valued, but this wasn't picked up on. I question how much I've missed the other way, too.
I'm retired from football now; both as player and coach. While I have plenty of time to return as a coach, I'm not sure I will. But I wonder if this lack of appreciation -- and by extension, respect -- played a larger part than I thought. I've always blamed injury for my playing career ending, while the decision to stop coaching was a mental health thing. But those both sound a bit like excuses, to be honest. Cover ups for my belief that I wasn't good enough, and that nobody convinced me otherwise. So maybe I shouldn't give up. Not entirely. I still want to love. And be loved. I'm not asking for much... am I?
