Nirbhay’s Take on our loss and life lessons

A wise man learns more from his success than a fool does from his mistakes! Safe to say that today the opponents took the 3 points but we can claim all the life lessons.

While it's a hard pill to swallow, we have to admit the opponents were clearly fitter than us. This shows us that even if you give your absolute 110% efforts on the day, it can't compensate for the build up to that day. Fitness, like any other scalable skill, is not built in a day. Temporary excellence can't beat preparation.

We had too many critical players from the squad unavailable today. While the starting XI gets the limelight, today everyone would've understood the importance of bench strength. In the corporate world as well, each & every employee has a very specific job to do and unfortunately their value soars ( and is appreciated) only in their absence!

We were 1-0 & 2-1 up at separate junctures of the match along with a numerical advantage (11v10). We felt it's our right to get the 3 points against 10 men but apparently our opponents didn't read the script! This shows how dynamic you have to be with your goals & expectations. With our team being effectively down to 9 ( 1 defender could barely walk due to cramp & our winger could barely move in the heat) in the 2nd half, we should have managed our expectations and carved out a comfortable draw.

The above sentences are capturing Nirbhay’s feelings and thoughts after yesterday’s loss.

Key points he is trying to highlight are -

• Though technically our team was better than the opposition in footballing skills, they were better than us in fitness and hence could performance better for longer duration of the game

• And though motivation was not an issue at our end. The intent was clear to go for the win. We win this game and we were sure to qualify for the Thane Premier League. However motivation and intent is not enough

• There are somethings which need to be built over time. Like fitness, you have to put in consistent efforts for months, if not years, to be at your best. Fitter body also means you don’t feel fatigue which eventually leads to fogging your thinking too. So what might come out as not-so-strong mental toughness, is also because of not being physically strong enough to do what you want to do. It leads to not running back to close down an opposition who was to take that goal scoring shot, or to cover that through ball with all your might knowing it might lead to a goal scoring chances. Or even when trying to score, its that little bit of alertness or wisdom when to take the shot at the goal and how, so that you actually score and not just hit the cross bar, or hit just outside the poles.

• And there are also some benefits of regular practice. It builds your muscle memories and you know what to do when in a split of a second. When you take that little extra time, or the opposition understands what you are trying to do, they close you down

• And its also about importance of focus. Professionals playing football is their priority. Our team has working professionals and football cannot be priority# 1 in our lives. It too has cost us 3 points yesterday. Most of our players couldn’t turn up for the match leading to a depleted bench strength. Only 2 Substitutes. Had we 3/6 more on the bench, may be they would have come in and changed the course of the game. in the hindsight we can think “all we had to do was push our team members just a little to take a day off and show up for may be the most important match of the season. Would it have been bad to be a little pushy and get that win? But where do you draw the line and be understanding for your players?” Or may be they coming in too would not have been enough. Who knows, but we know one thing for sure, we could have done a little more and a little better and might have won this match. Though there is glamour in being in the playing 11 , its on days like these you understand the importance of strong bench strength. Pretty much like in our offices, we understand how important a colleague is /was, when they are either on leave, or have left the company.

• There was also this problem of not staying switched on and taking things a little for granted. We had a one man advantage, one of their player was on red card, we were leading 2-1 for long time, and when they made the game 2-2 with 10 men against our 11 we thought oh man this might end up as a draw and that’s not what we want, till 90th min we went for the win, trying to score and win the match we were supposed to.

• We were ignoring the changes in our reality. Our players were not able to cope up with the scorching heat and couple of players were not able to run much. That was as good as we playing with 8.5 / 9 players. But did we change our play to accommodate that ? No we did not, we kept on pursuing the style we had planned to. Because they were a man down. And that only meant we had to go for the win. And that zeal tapered off in the extra time of 5 mins, when the opposition was still pushing to make things happen, and we were just waiting for the final whistle. All 3 goals we conceded were when our team switched off for may be 5 secs or little more and that was enough for the opposition to punish us. And defeat us.

• In the hindsight we can think, were we to make some drastic changes to switch player positions and improve our chances to win ? But what if those did not work, we would have blamed those erratic decisions for our loss and not the core issues - we are not fit enough, we don’t practice enough, and not enough players are showing up for the matches.

• Football, just like life, is a game of razor thin margins. There is very small difference between the team that wins and the other that doesn’t. Its very easy to write those off who don’t win but in reality its about that one little pass, or one attempt that leads to a goal or blocking a goal that is the difference between the teams.

• So many life lessons from this one match. Lessons we can use in our personal lives at work, in relationships, for studies.

• Such losses are part and parcel of the game. When we are in it for wins, we are also opening up for such loses. But its important we learn our lessons and become better. Though defeats are inevitable, but if we learn our lessons, we up our game and go to the next level. Commit different and bigger mistakes, and learn even bigger lessons and move on further up.

• Very tough to digest this defeat, but for sure we dont wish to miss out on the lessons from it. And remember how it made us feel. We never ever would like to feel this way again.