Football 2010-2011

[ampersand]

No goalpost move at all. I'm working what I'm saying from what Evra is saying.

Would Evra think he & Utd have had great success if they won the Champs, League One, League Two, or the JP Trophy?

[eFestivals]

it's all relative. man utd compare themselves with arsenal. just as brighton compare themselves with whoever is challenging for their league. brighton don't compare themselves with man utd. meaning that there is a point in all the 96 teams. just as there's a point in the other 40 scottish teams that can't win the spl.

You're absolutely right - Brighton don't compare themselves with Utd, and there remains a point to Brighton's existence.

The point of Brighton's existence is not negated if they fail to win something, while Evra believes that Arsenal's reason for existence *IS* negated by them failing to win something, and from that it's absolutely reasonable to believe that he feels the same about Utd.

Yet Utd could not ever win anything if football worked on the terms that he believes it works on for Arsenal (and so also Utd). Utd and every other club rely for their success on having teams to play against, teams that are happy to just play and not necessarily win.

While I'm sure there's plenty of Utd (and other team) supporters who would be happy to be winning the league of one team that Evra believes to be what football's about, some of us have more than one brain cell and so are able to see that for the bad joke that it is.

[ampersand]

just cos only one team can win a certain trophy at any given time, doesn't mean that's not what it's about. if it's not about winning, why have a ref and a scoreboard?

Yet Utd could not ever win anything if football worked on the terms that he believes it works on for Arsenal (and so also Utd). Utd and every other club rely for their success on having teams to play against, teams that are happy to just play and not necessarily win.

Edited December 10, 2010 by ampersand

[eFestivals]

just cos only one team can win a certain trophy at any given time, doesn't mean that's not what it's about. if it's not about winning, why have a ref and a scoreboard?

and this part is bollocks. no teams are happy to play and not win. especially wenger!

Why not just post that you don't understand sport, cos that's the truth of it.

[ampersand]

Why not just post that you don't understand sport, cos that's the truth of it.

[Cardboard Box City]

and this part is bollocks. no teams are happy to play and not win.

[ampersand]

Professional teams aren't, and professionals in any sport aren't because its their purpose - therefor the arguement that a professional team is happy to lose for the love of sport is non-sensical - success is measured on many levels (promotion, avoiding relegation, winning trophies), but success is always the goal of professionals.

[eFestivals]

you play to win.

yes, but most know that they can't and won't - so it doesn't hold as true as you (and Evra) believe that it does. If that applied as strictly as you're meaning it, 94 clubs would have packed in years ago. In fact, most would never have bothered starting.

So ultimately it becomes "playing because you can play" and not "playing to win". If it was just about playing to win, then the likes of Man Utd would have no one to play against and so no one to win against.

Utd's success is just as dependent on the failure of other teams as it is on anything they might do. They could have the best 11 players in the world but without a team to play against they can win nothing at all.

The sentiment expressed by Evra (and plenty of others at other times) is the perfect demonstration of all that is wrong with football today.

[eFestivals]

neil seems to live his life in a dictionary. you, i and probably everyone else on this forum and the planet base our idea on sport on what happens in the real world.

what happens in the real world is that the vast majority win nothing at all.

It's me that's referencing that reality and not you!

Your dictionary comment shows that it's you who is the one that's off the mark.

[ampersand]

see cbc's post about success depending on the team in question.

evra was talking about arsenal. with the size of club, quality of squad/manager and all the rest of it, they should be winning things. like they were a decade ago. it's not wrong to say that they are underachieving having not won anything in 5 years. if you think arsenal have done great in the past 5 years, then good luck to you.

[eFestivals]

see cbc's post about success depending on the team in question.

there's a huge gap between wanting to win and being able to win.

evra was talking about arsenal. with the size of club, quality of squad/manager and all the rest of it, they should be winning things. like they were a decade ago. it's not wrong to say that they are underachieving having not won anything in 5 years. if you think arsenal have done great in the past 5 years, then good luck to you.

Oh, they could have hocked themselves up to the eyeballs as Utd have. But they've clearly not wanted to do that, and have put their financial stability above winning.

Does that make them a failure? Nope. They've succeeded with what they've aimed for as their most important priority, and shown Evra's words about winning being the only thing of importance as the empty words that they are. How would doing a Leeds be a bigger achievement than their achievements of recent years?

They might not have won any silverware, but they're a very very long way from being the abject failure that Leeds became, and they've succeeded on a level that Utd haven't been able to do.

Pleasingly, there's few clubs that buy into the madness that both you and Evra are suffering from. As a fan of a club that once suffered from that same madness, I'm able to recognise that there's things far more important than winning within football.

[ampersand]

why are you mentioning leeds? man utd aren't leeds.

if we were talking about arsenal now and leeds of 7 or so years ago, you'd have a point.

my club has suffered the same fate twice. but that doesn't stop the main point of football being to win. s'why we have tables and 3 points for a win you see.

[The Nal]

The sentiment expressed by Evra (and plenty of others at other times) is the perfect demonstration of all that is wrong with football today.

[eFestivals]

why are you mentioning leeds? man utd aren't leeds.

if we were talking about arsenal now and leeds of 7 or so years ago, you'd have a point.

my club has suffered the same fate twice. but that doesn't stop the main point of football being to win. s'why we have tables and 3 points for a win you see.

If the main point is to win yet few clubs ever do, why are they bothering?

Which gets to prove the point that it's not about winning. Trying to win is something else entirely.

Why am I mentioning Leeds? Because that's the scenario that Arsenal would have had to put themselves in for them to be able to fully compete with the likes of Utd over the last 5 years or so.

Man Utd aren't Leeds. Yet.

[eFestivals]

I understand your point but I disagree with it, in sport in general. Most of my footballers have been "winners". Alex Ferguson, Marco Van Basten, Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Diego Maradona and actually sports stars in general like Stephen Hendry, Michael Johnson, Mohammad Ali, Valentino Rossi, Michael Schumacher et al. Its that winning mentality that makes me find them so fascinating, the drive and ambition etc.

Compare these "winners" to people, who may have been more entertaining to watch, but weren't as "successful" : Jimmy White, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Matthew LeTissier, Ronaldinho, Randy Mamola, Mike Tyson and the like, great to watch and a lot of them more talented than those mentioned above, but they dont go down in the history books as the best.

So back to Evra, that winning mentality has been drilled into him by Ferguson for the last few years, because Ferguson is a winner. As is Wenger by the way, but not just yet with this particular squad.

You happen to support one of the tiny number of winning clubs. You are in the minority.

If only your view existed, you'd have no teams to play and you'd be able to win nothing - and then your view would be shown as being completely worthless.

You are only able to have the view that you do because a far greater number of others don't have that view. It is only because others are prepared to play and lose that Utd are able to win.

[ampersand]

winning and trying to win are the same thing which we are discussing. just some succeed and most don't. the goal for managers is to win as many games as they can. most bother cos there's always next year. and the one after that.

you know what i'm saying, you just fancy an arguement. and i'll have to take your word on your crystal ball abilities.

[WS_Jack_III]

Just want to say as a Toon fan i'm sick at the moment. Late input but i couldn't face talking about the whole thing. Mike needed to sell up a long time ago

[worm]

Can a team survive without winning? No. Ergo, it's all about winning.

[funkymp]

Few rumours around that we are letting Daniel Sturridge go onloan to Swansea in Jan, must mean we're going to sign a striker if that's the case then surely?

[Greeny_Musicchild]

Neil, your view of the motivations behind professional sport is at best misguided and at worst insane. Sportsman of all levels play to win, whether they can or not.

[Steve P]

Well Barca's financial problems will have been eased somewhat by this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/9276343.stm

[eFestivals]

winning and trying to win are the same thing

No they're not.

If you're winning then you're winning. If you're trying to win then you are accepting that you will lose - a lot or just sometimes - as the price of taking part.

If you only play to win then you don't bother to just take part, because that is not winning.

[eFestivals]

Neil, your view of the motivations behind professional sport is at best misguided and at worst insane. Sportsman of all levels play to win, whether they can or not.

They play to TRY AND WIN. They do NOT "play to win" - unless you have your head up your arse like Evra and play for one of the very few clubs that do win.

It's a very minor difference in the words used to describe it, but a HUGE difference in why you do it.

[The Nal]

Well Barca's financial problems will have been eased somewhat by this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/9276343.stm

[Steve P]

Was always going to happen wasnt it? Nice bit of bunse for them all the same.