football, eh, bloody hell

If I lose control of these multimillionaires in the Manchester United dressing room, then I’m dead. So I never lose control. If anyone steps out of my control, they’re dead.

says Sir Alex Ferguson, in a piece in T Magazine.

Control, managing change and observation,

these “three graces” are what Fergie’s management style is divided into.

i never read on football – not a fan, as you might have suspected – yet i specifically decided to dig into this article, out of sheer curiosity.  and it surely paid off:  there was little sports and plenty of human drama and wisdom inside.

it reminded me of talking to Bogdana some 2 years ago, over a wine in London, and her drawing my attention to a peculiar fact, to how Pro TV owns (or did, as I am not up to date?) the sports news coverage in Romania by never talking sports and always creating a mega-drama, with battles and wars and defeats and love stories and betrayals and struggles and triumphs and all, edited to catch the strongest of bare emotions with a dramatic music and narration.  so that every reportage is a Hollywood production in its own right.

to use another quote, English soccer is

not a matter of life or death, it is much, much more important than that.

so it’s of little wonder my last collected gem from the article is Cantona’s beyond-sports wit:

the salmon that idles its way downstream will never leap the waterfall.

and I’d still add one last last one:

Football, eh, bloody hell.