@sabelostormz What an unfair opinion when ridiculing a Top professional who was the most consummate pro. I always said a team with 11 @MMORTON6 will be successful and that will never change.
Football players need a little more love, a little more kindness.
You know, owning and coaching a team has really improved and changed my outlook on football and how I let certain things from the game affect me. It changed how I deal with the player, the human being, and this why I give advice even to opponent players. Because I know what my role, my responsibility now is to these boys. Ask all my players. I am impossible. I am difficult. I am very very hard to please. I am demanding. I want my boys to do things they never thought they could manage. But I still believe in them and understand that they will have flaws just like I have flaws.
For starters, ever since I started running a team, I learnt the biggest lesson. You can always be honest with players without making them feel like they are useless or that they are failures or that they are costing the team or that they are stupid. Because the truth is, no player sacrifices their time, walks on to the pitch at the risk of injuries, put their bodies on the line, only to cost the team. I have seen my playersβ faces when they lost that they really wanted to win. Sometimes I do not have to say anything because their face will just tell me how they feel.
Secondly, I have learnt not to harshly criticize players, coaches or be personal. This is why I always find it very disappointing and unfortunate when aspiring soccer players, those who played before, aspiring coaches bash players at professional or national level.
One day, you are going to play with the same player you call a cow, or coach them. If they knew what you say about them, do you think they will be happy to work with you or assist you? One day, as an aspiring coach, you are going to coach players. Do you think players will be happy being told they are cows who cost the team?
Imagine you are playing for Rampuru Direpe Dia Kata FC, you want to play pro. You say things about a Polokwane City player playing for Bafana. One day you get to Polokwane City for trials and now need support from that guy. If he knows what you said, instead of supporting him, do you think he will support you? Now you are going to say that guy is not nice. No, you were not nice from the onset. A lot of players in Limpopo have benefited, and some will still benefit from Evidence Makgopa for example, but you are not calling him a cow. Do you think he will continue helping the same people who cyber-bully him?
I say this because in December, one of my goalkeepers was training at a PSL team. His goalkeeper gloves were just not for the required level where he was training. They failed him just as training started. He needed to change. But who was going to help him? I could not because the shops were far. One player from that team ran back to the dressing room and fetched new equipment for him. It was a very warm moment.
I suppose not all of us are going to look at life this way. But I spend so much time with these boys. I know how much they try. I talk to them. I know their anxieties, their struggles, their fears. I know their problems. I know sometimes they donβt even want to play because of those fears and anxieties. And this happens to a lot of players. It takes someone who is willing to listen to know. You cannot love someone today, and call them names tomorrow. This is why for me, the first thing is to understand, to encourage, to love, to protect these boys. They face so much hate. They face so much hostility. But they need to know that someone cares. Someone loves them. Someone is on their side.