About two weeks ago one of the most supported teams in
Mexican soccer, Chivas de Guadalajara, defeated Puebla thanks to a penalty shot
taken after an alleged foul on Erick Torres. The cameras showed the obvious;
Torres fooled the referee by falling inside the penalty area, pretending to be
fouled when in reality nobody even touched him. The referee sanctioned the
alleged foul by granting a penalty shot in favor of Guadalajara. In soccer 95
out of 100 times penalty shots usually end in a goal and Guadalajara didn’t
disappoint by scoring the easy and decisive goal.
In the press conference Guadalajara’s coach talked about the
above mentioned deceiving action on the part of Torres. Here are some of his “gems”:
“It is important for me that the essence of soccer doesn’t
get lost. Soccer is deception, an error, a wise move.”
“In soccer everybody tries to take advantage, he is a young
player, I saw the play and he dove like everyone dives. Now it seems that the essence
of soccer, those beautiful things like guile and deception are being frowned upon
when they have always existed”
It is clear that the coach accepts and supports that “soccer
is deception”, and that “guile and cheating” are the beautiful parts of the
game. We are talking about the coach of probably the most followed team in
Mexico. Thousands of young people tune in week after week to watch their idols
perform. Children will find “deception”, “cheating”, and “guile” as the path to
take in order to achieve goals. If this works in a soccer game, why wouldn’t it
work in every other aspect of life?
A winning-at-all-cost mentality permeates sport and has to
be eradicated. This mentality has been installed deep in our beings and can be
summed up with the classical and popular Mexican saying: “El que no tranza; no
avanza” (He who does not cheat; does not get ahead). Gerardo M. - KIN 577
No comments:
Post a Comment