Loved the interview.
And an interesting and unexpected take away for me was the idea of runners up being something to remember and even celebrate. The idea that a campaign that goes to the wire, that comes within a whisker of winning, be it a domestic cup campaign, a European campaign or the league itself, means that there was a lot of great games, goals and saves and some fantastic nights along the way and is therefore worth remembering.
We’ve grown up with the idea that first is first and second is nothing. Shankly put it best as always. More recently we’ve seen footballers (not always in red) remove their runners up medals as it’s somehow a symbol of failure. And I get that too. Completely. I’m not trying to pretend to be some superfan here. Being runners up hurts. But Jürgen (and the TAW lads) are so right when talking about being prepared to lose big if you want to win big.
It’s made me revisit some of our ‘glorious failures’ over the years. Some of them are painful memories. But others were truly glorious in a strange way.
We’ve obviously got the Champions Wall. But I’d love to see a Runners Up Wall as well to see how many trophies we’ve nearly won! It must be loads. I don’t mean literally by the way. I’m not advocating an actual wall!
That might be a bit, well, embarrassing! But I might have to spend some time one day going over them all, from our entire history, to find and remember some gems.
Shanks would probably turn in his grave if he read this post
and there will be loads who will be sickened by the idea of celebrating failure. But the Europa campaign under Jürgen, for instance, wasn’t a failure despite the final. It was joyous and memorable and just brilliant. The Dortmund matches, the “magnificent seven” at Old Trafford. Just great occasions with incredible goals and bus welcomes and flags and songs. They should be remembered, not forgotten.
I think that’s Jürgen’s philosophy in a nutshell. It’s always worth giving it a go. And falling just short is better than not challenging at all. What’s his record? Seven trophies and six runners up? That’s some record in nine years. It’s why it’s water off a ducks back when fans of teams who have done fuck all for years and years take the piss when we fall just short. We don’t care because we’ve come first so many times that our Champions Wall is unrivalled. And we’ve come first so many times BECAUSE we’ve been runners up so many times. You have to. It’s necessary. Inevitable. Part of the process. You literally can’t ‘win ‘em all’.
Listening to Jürgen left me feeling really positive after the disappointment of our drop off towards the end of this season. It’s why Sunday will be so good
What a ride it’s been.
