In the recent Champions League semi-final second leg match, Liverpool had the herculean task of having to score four goals and not concede any, in order to overcome their first-leg deficit of 0-3 against the hot favourites Barcelona. To make matters worse, they were without key players through injury and suspension while their opponents had been able to rest all their first choice players in the league match the previous weekend to prepare them for the huge task of qualifying for the final. The odds were heavily stacked against Liverpool – yet, astonishingly, Liverpool won the match 4-0 and therefore qualified for the final.
At half-time Liverpool had scored one goal – the question was: could they achieve the impossible and score three more in the second half? They had been forced to make a substitution at half-time as one player was badly injured by a poor tackle by a Barcelona player and amazingly, ironically, that substitute went on to score two goals within five minutes of each other to level the match. The talking point and the turning point of the whole match came in the seventy-ninth minute when Liverpool won a corner. A ball boy first of all showed quick thinking when he rolled the ball promptly to the Liverpool player standing at the flag. That player then showed quick thinking when he saw the opposition turning their backs to take up their positions for the planned, choreographed corner and played the ball quickly into an alert team mate who scored with a first-time shot.
The Barcelona coach, Ernesto Valverde, gave his explanation afterwards: “They surprised us with the fourth goal – presumably my players weren’t looking. Liverpool were street smart and they scored.” Presumably he was not looking either, if he can only presume! However, there was nothing street smart or wise about Liverpool’s play. Street wise is defined as “having the experience and knowledge necessary to deal with the potential difficulties or dangers of life in an urban environment” and as being “intelligence learned outside school”. It was not a matter of Liverpool being streetwise; rather Barcelona failed to apply the most obvious piece of common sense. This was something they could have learned at school, not outside. The former Liverpool and current Barcelona player, Luis Suarez, perhaps gave a more accurate response when he said, “For their fourth goal we looked like schoolboys.” And there we have it: schoolboy errors made by professionals.
What then are these schoolboy errors that highly-paid professionals have made? Clearly, in this case it was a matter of losing concentration at a key moment; the players switched off when a corner was awarded (in a similar way that players may switch off after scoring a goal and completing their celebrations or when play is stopped for an injury to a player). Players turned their back on the ball; they did not prepare themselves for any eventuality and they paid heavily as a result.
Of course, it may not simply come down to that one fact, that one slight loss of concentration. The Barcelona players perhaps committed schoolboy errors by thinking their lead from the first leg was unassailable. Furthermore, they forgot a key lesson that passion and commitment can overcome precision and tactics, not least when the crowd is behind the team’s passion. Indeed, in the aftermath of the victory, Mark Lawrenson, another former Liverpool player but current television pundit is quoted as saying that, “I don’t believe Liverpool could have pulled off their famous Champions League victory over Lionel Messi and Co without the help of their fans, who I know from experience are like a twelfth man when you are out there on the pitch.”
If these (and more) are indeed schoolboy errors, typical mistakes that we see at schoolboy level, then it is vitally important that such lessons are learned while at school, through sport, so they do not make them in life when they may be more costly. It would therefore be an error on our part to ignore the opportunities that sport at school provides for children to learn such vital life lessons; we for our part must not lose our concentration and switch off, thus potentially missing the threat of attacks on our children achieving their goals. We do not need to be street smart to know or understand that. We can, however, find ourselves in the league of champions if we do.
