How to lose: A Lesson from West Ham
41 comments May 14th, 2006
I’ve watched three cup finals this past week. In each of them, the underdog has failed. Middlesbrough, Gretna, and West Ham all had a definite chance of victory, but fell at the final hurdle.
Next week, Arsenal will be up against strong favourites Barcelona in the Champions League Final. I can’t help but hope that they players watched the performance of West Ham yesterday, in their FA Cup Final defeat to Liverpool.
They certainly ought to have watched: after the favour West Ham did us by beating Spurs, we all had to be right behind the Hammers. And if they did tune in, what they would’ve seen was a team who fought for 120 minutes against the tide of expectation for a Liverpool victory. You could see from the way Liverpool played that they thought they would win. But you could see from the way West Ham played that they knew they could win.
I hope Sol Campbell, if he starts in Paris, saw the performance of Daniel Gabbidon, who fought tooth-and-nail for every ball. I hope Emmanuel Eboue saw Lionel Scaloni still getting forward to attack in the 115th minute. I pray that Gilberto saw what an inspirational midfielder like Reo-Coker can do to galvanise a team’s performance, and I hope Thierry witnessed his outstanding leadership.
West Ham may have lost. But they did so in such a manner that even the fiercest Liverpool fan would have to applaud. On the day, they were beaten by one exceptional player. When Steven Gerrard is on-song, he is unplayable. The same is true of Ronaldinho. However, the difference between Arsenal and West Ham is that we have Thierry Henry – a player who is more than capable of producing a match-winning performance in one of these huge games.
Arsenal can beat Barcelona. Personally, I believe Arsenal will beat Barcelona. There is a belief and a confidence about the group that drove us to victory over Wigan last week. I know Wigan are not Barcelona, but surely one underdog will triump out of all those cup finals? I’m desperate for it to be us.
But if we do lose, let’s lose like West Ham. Let’s make sure we’re applauded off the pitch by ever fan in that stadium. Let’s leave every drop of sweat and blood that we have on that Parisien pitch.
And let’s not leave any regrets.
