Tuesday, February 5
I had the opportunity to gain a touch of England today by the Internet and I have to admit I’m a bit inspired by what I read.
Surfing the Telegraph’s website today, I came across a marvelous article from yesterday’s edition by reporter John Inverdale regarding the lost art of writing for the match program.
As manager, I do get to write comments for the weekly program, and I for one actually write mine. The article I read today talked about whether the big-time managers really do (most of them don’t) and how bad writing really shows through.
To contrast, he used the words of onetime Lincoln City manager Colin Murphy, who was in charge of the club in the 1970s.
Today’s public relations-minded, non-controversial comments are often the stuff of pablum, but Murphy wrote his own thoughts and wrote them quite well.
One phrase Murray used, related by Inverdale, stuck out in my mind. So it’s at the top of today’s entry.
I read that phrase about a dozen times. That must have been a hell of a match program because those words impress me to no end.
What I want to create, both with this club and hopefully with my own career, is an empire of the future. I can see it in my mind’s eye and I’m not afraid to dream it. I may well never get there, but I’m going to dream it and see if it can’t get built. If not here, then somewhere.
My dreaming over, we returned to training today as well, and are preparing for the visit of twelfth-placed Legnano to Euganeo on Sunday.
The bookies have installed us as a prohibitive favorite – we are 1-4 to get the result. I’m not at all sure I care for that, as the expectations will surely provide a double-edged sword for my players. And I’m not being positive.
The one edge will be expectation and the other might well be overconfidence, as we performed quite well indeed last weekend after going a goal down. Neither one is pleasant to contemplate. If we aren’t careful we’ll fall on our swords and take both edges at the same time.
We started, as we always do, with video and scouting on the first day back from a day off.
Legnano hasn’t been a huge threat in front of goal this season so the defenders are pretty confident, and the video we saw bore out that confidence for the most part. I don’t see them doing a whole lot of damage myself, but the priority for us is to turn that optimism into a clean sheet.
We do have this to consider as well: three of the top four sides in the league this week are all playing lower-ranked opposition. We host the twelfth-placed team in the table while Venezia hosts 15th placed Ternana and Sassuolo hosts Pro Sesto, who are 14th in the league.
Am I starting to look over my shoulder? How can I not? For me, though, the goal is to make it look like I’m not.
Today in training, I tried to create a light mood. That was easier to do with a four-point lead, of course, but players read the papers too and Emiliani hasn’t written anything nasty in nearly a whole week.
I spent the better part of the afternoon session trying to settle down Donadoni, who didn’t react well to some of the happy things I said after Sunday’s match.
Players can be notoriously fickle regarding those sorts of things and it’s a real source of frustration to me that some of these players won’t let me be optimistic.
You can’t crack the whip with modern players and you can’t coddle them if you want to keep charge of your changing room. The alternative is to say nothing at all and media won’t let you get away with that. So what I’d like to see is a mature approach to praise and criticism from the players under my charge.
The best way to do that, in my view, is to win something and see what that does. I’ve had a couple of team talks that have gone over well but I don’t have the reputation yet that I need to have if the players are going to start reacting to comment the way I want them to. That’s just how it is. Winning things is the only way to change it.
“Empires of the future are empires of the mind and if we dream they do become built.” – Colin Murphy
I had the opportunity to gain a touch of England today by the Internet and I have to admit I’m a bit inspired by what I read.
Surfing the Telegraph’s website today, I came across a marvelous article from yesterday’s edition by reporter John Inverdale regarding the lost art of writing for the match program.
As manager, I do get to write comments for the weekly program, and I for one actually write mine. The article I read today talked about whether the big-time managers really do (most of them don’t) and how bad writing really shows through.
To contrast, he used the words of onetime Lincoln City manager Colin Murphy, who was in charge of the club in the 1970s.
Today’s public relations-minded, non-controversial comments are often the stuff of pablum, but Murphy wrote his own thoughts and wrote them quite well.
One phrase Murray used, related by Inverdale, stuck out in my mind. So it’s at the top of today’s entry.
“Empires of the future are empires of the mind and if we dream they do become built.”
I read that phrase about a dozen times. That must have been a hell of a match program because those words impress me to no end.
What I want to create, both with this club and hopefully with my own career, is an empire of the future. I can see it in my mind’s eye and I’m not afraid to dream it. I may well never get there, but I’m going to dream it and see if it can’t get built. If not here, then somewhere.
# # #
My dreaming over, we returned to training today as well, and are preparing for the visit of twelfth-placed Legnano to Euganeo on Sunday.
The bookies have installed us as a prohibitive favorite – we are 1-4 to get the result. I’m not at all sure I care for that, as the expectations will surely provide a double-edged sword for my players. And I’m not being positive.
The one edge will be expectation and the other might well be overconfidence, as we performed quite well indeed last weekend after going a goal down. Neither one is pleasant to contemplate. If we aren’t careful we’ll fall on our swords and take both edges at the same time.
We started, as we always do, with video and scouting on the first day back from a day off.
Legnano hasn’t been a huge threat in front of goal this season so the defenders are pretty confident, and the video we saw bore out that confidence for the most part. I don’t see them doing a whole lot of damage myself, but the priority for us is to turn that optimism into a clean sheet.
We do have this to consider as well: three of the top four sides in the league this week are all playing lower-ranked opposition. We host the twelfth-placed team in the table while Venezia hosts 15th placed Ternana and Sassuolo hosts Pro Sesto, who are 14th in the league.
Am I starting to look over my shoulder? How can I not? For me, though, the goal is to make it look like I’m not.
Today in training, I tried to create a light mood. That was easier to do with a four-point lead, of course, but players read the papers too and Emiliani hasn’t written anything nasty in nearly a whole week.
I spent the better part of the afternoon session trying to settle down Donadoni, who didn’t react well to some of the happy things I said after Sunday’s match.
Players can be notoriously fickle regarding those sorts of things and it’s a real source of frustration to me that some of these players won’t let me be optimistic.
You can’t crack the whip with modern players and you can’t coddle them if you want to keep charge of your changing room. The alternative is to say nothing at all and media won’t let you get away with that. So what I’d like to see is a mature approach to praise and criticism from the players under my charge.
The best way to do that, in my view, is to win something and see what that does. I’ve had a couple of team talks that have gone over well but I don’t have the reputation yet that I need to have if the players are going to start reacting to comment the way I want them to. That’s just how it is. Winning things is the only way to change it.
# # #