CBC Sports Online's soccer expert, John Molinaro, takes you inside the world of soccer and offers his insights about the action on the pitch and in the front office.
Winning is all that matters
Comments (8)
Thursday, May 8, 2008 | 10:15 AM ET
No doubt Fiorentina fans are still belly aching over their loss to Rangers in the semifinals of the UEFA Cup last week.
The viola totally dominated the home tie, running roughshod over Rangers, pinning them inside their half for long periods, creating a series of scoring chances and generally out-playing the Scottish side.
Of course, that mattered little, as the Scots held the Italians scoreless through 90 minutes of regulation time and an additional 30 minutes of overtime before pulling out the victory in a penalty shootout to advance to the final.
After the game, the Italian press was in a fit, blasting the Scots for playing such "negative football" by putting 11 players behind the ball, suggesting that Fiorentina were by far the better side and clearly deserved to go through to the final.
A friend of mine, who just happens to be a die-hard Fiorentina fan, made a similar suggestion to me last night, and went to great lengths to blast the Scots for their negative approach.
As much as I would like to have seen the viola progress over Rangers, I have a hard time feeling sorry the viola.
True, they did dominate the game and were totally committed to playing attacking soccer – unlike Rangers – but Fiorentina have only themselves to blame for the loss: had they converted just one of any of the dozen of scoring chances they had created, they would be off to the final in Manchester.
Instead, it's Rangers who will play in the final, and it has to be said they deserve it more than Fiorentina because they adhered to that classic Italian theory: the ends justify the means.
It was Machiavelli who first penned that famous quote, and although he wasn't talking about soccer, it applies beautifully to the beautiful game.
While teams who play an attacking, beautiful and artful style are to be commended for their spirit, it has to be said that winning, in the end, is all that matters, and if that means playing ugly and negative football, like Rangers did, than so be it.
Rangers' Machiavellian approach got them into the UEFA; Fiorentina's artful approach got them nothing.
I always find it amusing when historians and critics refer to Brazil's 1982 World Cup side as one of the greatest in the history of the game.
Why is that? Because they played beautiful soccer?
That's hardly a reason to classify them as a great team. If Brazil was so great, they would have won the World Cup that year, instead of falling to the Italians, the eventual winners, in the quarter-finals.
Does anybody seriously think Zico and the rest of his teammates wouldn't swap the meaningless title of greatest team in history for a World Cup title?
If Rangers won ugly by playing dour and defensive soccer, than so bit
In the end, winning is all counts. Nothing else.
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
This discussion is now Open. Submit your Comment.
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
Post a Comment
Planet Soccer »
About the Author
John F. Molinaro is a reporter for CBC Sport Online whose chief love is international soccer. John served as senior editor of Sports Online's Euro 2004 website, which helped him win a CBC.ca Award of Excellence, and was the driving force behind our coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He holds an honours BA in sociology from York University and a print journalism diploma from Sheridan College, and is also the author of The Top 100 Pro Wrestlers of All Time (Stewart House, 2002).
Recent Posts
- Getting behind the Montreal Impact
- Tuesday, September 23, 2008
- Del Piero's wonder-goal was a stunner
- Thursday, September 18, 2008
- World Cup disaster: Canada simply isn't good enough
- Thursday, September 11, 2008
- John Carver confident he'll be back for another season
- Thursday, August 7, 2008
- FIFA should challenge IOC over Olympic call-ups
- Thursday, July 31, 2008
- Subscribe to Planet Soccer
Archives
- September 2008 (3)
- August 2008 (1)
- July 2008 (4)
- June 2008 (9)
- May 2008 (4)
- April 2008 (3)
- March 2008 (3)
- February 2008 (4)
- January 2008 (4)
- December 2007 (3)
- November 2007 (4)
- October 2007 (6)
- September 2007 (4)
- August 2007 (3)
- July 2007 (1)
- June 2007 (3)
- May 2007 (2)
- April 2007 (2)
- March 2007 (4)
- February 2007 (3)
- January 2007 (4)
- December 2006 (3)
- November 2006 (5)
- October 2006 (3)
Comments (8)
Sergio
Ottawa-ON
I, as brazilian, have to disagree with this blog. I was 8 y.o. when I saw one of the greatest teams of soccer history. Great names like Zico, Socrates, Falcao, Junior and others have been written in many international cups around the world. This discussion of beautiful game X victory no matter how bad you played has been around for a while and all of us would like to see our clubs to play to win AND to give a show apart. Well, few teams have done that, very few.
Posted May 8, 2008 12:26 PM
hawksley
pompeii
Reading the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs I thought you were talking about the most recent world cup final.
Posted May 8, 2008 12:39 PM
Bryan Carey
I think one of the things about soccer that is great is that on any given day one team can beat another. The 1982 may have been the greatest team, but they are still not the Globtrotters, and Italy was damn good too. I don't know enough about those teams to say for sure, but I don't think one loss makes a team.
But I also think that it is a silly argument that Rangers didn't deserve to win because they didn't play the same brand of football... if they tried they would have lost. So they did what they had to do, and it worked.
Posted May 8, 2008 01:05 PM
scott
edmonton
Winning clearly *isn't* all that matters, as evidenced by the fact that people still talk about 1982 Brazil.
Professional sport is an entertainment industry, and a team that wins titles with negative play is always going to draw hatred from the neutrals and opposition.
Beautiful play in the beautiful game should be fostered and encouraged, not derided.
Posted May 9, 2008 09:37 AM
Carlo
Ottawa
Rangers had to play that style to win. It's called winning ugly! But Vieri is a big reason the Viola lost and I think it's time for Bobo to go Bye-bye. Maybe a Serie B team would be interested but his time in Serie A is over. I can't believe Vieri thought he had a shot at making the Italian team for the Euros. He's been a proven goal scorer in the past but his time has come and gone.
Posted May 9, 2008 10:15 AM
Alex
calgary
Teams from that region play the same way for for ninety minutes and all life long. I think that if a team is not able to perform quality soccer and provide entertainment for the fans.They should not be consider to qualify for an international competition.
Posted May 11, 2008 08:28 PM
Criatian Popescu
Italia - Brazilia, 1982
Even I am a Romanian by birthplace, I have to admit that the above game went in favour of Italy due to corrupted referees (Center referee)
I watched the game together with several friends and our ONLY thought was:"How much was paid the centre referee to pull out Italy as a winer"
If you watched the games that "pushed up" South Korea to the semifinal (victims: Spain, Italy(??), etc)the history never ever mention the performance of referees.
ARGENTINA 1976 - In order to "eliminate" Brazil from the final, Argentina should win
6-0 in front of Peru. Less than a minute from the start of the game, one Peruan player reached to be ALONE WITH THE BALL IN FRONT OF AN EMPTY NET.........his shout went ABOVE THE NET. At return in Peru 1 or 2 players were ether beaten or shut.
CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION.......
Best Regards, Cristian Popescu
Posted May 12, 2008 09:46 AM
Alexander
Vancouver
Hawksley....did you even watch the world cup final, did you notice the cheap penalty awarded to France??? Did you notice Italy score a real goal and hit the crossbar??
Just wondering...you forget one important thing....if a team can't score, regardless of the others style of play, then that team ain't any good.....
Posted May 12, 2008 12:06 PM