Seriously, both soccer and football are games of inches. That extra effort can make the difference between winning and losing, and motivation is behind that extra effort. That is why the coach, and team leaders makes all the difference.

You don’t need to be a former super player to be a good coach. You need to be able to reach the parts in players other coaches can not reach (thanks to Heineken….)

Coach Tony D’Amato, played by Al Pacino: from the movie “Any Given Sunday” (layout is intentional, we’re talking motivational poetry here.)

I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you.
I’m too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh….
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That’s, that’s part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don’t quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That’s a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That’s football guys.
That’s all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?

Moved, maybe? Hear it, see it. http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk

Remove the pads, make the ball round, and the message is the same.

Personally I find this speech strangely applicable to Oranje football; the idea of space, healing as a team, and a coach that connects on a personal level to bring the meaning of winning into a larger picture. (Marco, are you listening?)

Beautiful football isn’t a 12 second highlight, or a new shoe contract, and it’s far more then just knowing the road. It’s 11 guys walking the road together.

That’s football guys.
That’s all it is.