Smart arse reply.
Yeah it wasn't a blatantly obvious username reference to an equally smart arse reply.
However you are right you don't get it.
It's a local thing.
Then please, by all means explain it to me. Where I'm from the only time you should ever care is when you play for the national team. When you play for the team you support it means that you ignore the big picture and let emotions overrule all common sense. I should know, since I played for my local team. When you support the team you play for you go all out all the time. You play through the pain barrier and you throw all caution out the wind if it means getting just one game. It's all fine and well for the supporters, they admire you for it, they sing you and it's all fine and well until you actually hit a legitimate problem. Fowler, Owen, Redknapp all had their Liverpool careers cut short because they were young and pushed themselves too much. I can easily relate as I'm as guilty of it as anyone. I've played 3/4 of a game with a broken jaw. Spitting out and replacing a medical gauze every 3-5 minutes because my mouth wouldn't stop bleeding. There still wasn't a chance in hell I was going to let anyone stop me from finishing the game. Of course that only made things much worse and I was out for the next 6. There are countless other examples. I've played with dislocated and broken finger, cracked ribs, broken my elbow and had so many injuries playing that I still suffer from it, and I haven't played in years.
Around 2008 you would never have questioned that Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres loved the club. And again this is where I seem to differ from the locals is when I heard they were having injections before each match to play through the pain barrier I didn't think they were heroes, I thought they were fucking idiots. Of course both of them suffered recurring injuries, agitating the ones that were already plaguing them and as a result both are a shadow of their former selves.
A similar situation is happening with Carles Puyol. He's injured himself in 43 seperate locations whilst playing for Barca and the national team. And again we reach the point of differing opinions. There are some who will claim this is the kind of dedication they want from their players, I know it's the kind of player I wanted to be (even though I played a different sport). But when I see my team play I want every player to be like Javier Zanetti. Someone who knows where to draw the line. Someone with the big picture in mind and who sees the benefit in recovering and reaching 100% fitness instead of chancing it because of raw emotion. I want someone who has a career low of 34 games a season. Someone who has captained the club for 13 years without missing a beat, because he realises that everything counts in the long run. Missing a few games is worth if it means being fit for the rest of the season, however important said games might be.
Maybe I just don't
get it but it's how I see it. I'd take cold ruthless efficiency over chest pounding and badge kissing every day. And if so then so be it. Bill Shankly famously said "For a player to be good enough to play for Liverpool, he must be prepared to run through a brick wall for me then come out fighting on the other side" I appreciate the idealism of it but I'd rather see Liverpool's player scale the wall and be fit to fight on the other side.
