Matt Smith reacts to Keanu Reeves being spotted watching ‘MORBIUS’ on a flight.
“Jesus Christ he must have really went through the airplane library to get to ‘Morbius’”
Maybe, just maybe, at the highest levels of competition where even the tiniest differences in mentality can result in vast competitive differences, *maybe* having a national team made up of people who instinctively think of themselves as people from that nation would provide a slight competitive advantage over talented Congolese, Ivorian and Senegalese teams where half of the players think they're from France, and another third think they're from Belgium.
Maybe the fact that Harry Kane has no such identity crisis or colonial complex inside his head gives him that extra 0.1% of mental clarity to deliver when his country needs him. Maybe the fact that Yoan Wissa on the other hand has a head full of all this mental clutter contributes just a tiny little bit to dulling his output right when it needs to be sharpest.
Maybe football is a reflection of society, and a national football team reflects the character of the nation it represents. Maybe it is not possible for a society that genuinely takes no pride in itself to have a football team that takes pride in itself. Maybe it's no coincidence that in the entire history of the world cup, the competition has only been won by teams whose coach is indigenous.
Maybe the world cup is not about how individually great your Bayern Munich and Liverpool superstars are. Maybe it's about finding out whether those Villareal and Olympique Lyon stars can emotionally connect with the aspirations of the national team shirt they're wearing. Maybe neocolonial stalemate societies with zero state ambition and no shared sense of national project are never going to be anything other than colourful also-rans at the FIFA world cup.
Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm just a dickhead who overthinks everything. Maybe I shouldn't even bother posting this because what fucking needle does it move anyway.
What makes these African teams getting knocked out even worse is how condescending the commentators are when talking about them from beginning till end. I can’t take it anymore.
Here we are.
Anyway you wouldn't be African if denying obvious material realities wasn't your thing. Some of us just choose to believe the evidence of our own eyes.
There is clearly a very deep psychological gap. Until it is addressed, let's just support Morocco.
Black African teams have a general psychology issue playing against Euro sides,
they have greatly improved in skill and performance,
but too many times in knockout games once up a goal, its like they can't believe they're actually winning, so they just then self-sabotage and lose out.
This is really the story of Africa in general.
Gotta reject self imposed Ls.
I genuinely can’t believe what I have just witnessed. They sat back against this mediocre Belgium team cos they didn’t believe in their own juice enough to keep playing.
This is pathetic.