The moral victory has plagued football for a few years. It generally follows a few lines, and one or more of them can be present. The defeated team is usually the one that plays the nicer-looking football, and enjoys most of the possession.
The opposition might have a man-of-the-match performance from a central defender or goalkeeper. Often, they might be the beneficiary of a controversial red card or penalty award. There is always, then, something for the vanquished team to points towards. This is your moral victory, proven by the fact that ultimately you didn’t get the real victory.
Roy Keane, you might remember, has little idea for the concept of a moral victory. As the Republic of Ireland went out to a goal created by a Thierry Henry cross, following an Henry handball, there was rage and complaint.
Keane, as committed a player as you could find, with a strong set of principles (whether or not you agree with them or not), simply wondered why Ireland hadn’t defended the cross properly. The time for recrimination for the decision was in another world where it might have some kind of effect. You can piss and moan as you like, but rarely does it have any effect.
Many of the complaints and aggro that come after a game of football are attempts to mitigate the disappointment that comes from the whole point of football: score more goals than the opposition in order to win the game.
The rules are known at the start of every season, and the start of every match. Win as many games as you can in order to win as many competitions as you can manage. It is bizarre that this rage carry-on is repeated, if you consider this fact.
If you consider human nature, with all its emphasis on pride and rationalising disappointment, then it becomes clearer why it happens so often. It is not especially wrong to try to blame someone else – indeed it probably helps us function from one day to another – but it isn’t always a helpful crutch to rely upon.
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Arsenal are currently going through their own grief process following their 3-1 defeat to Manchester United on Saturday evening. They are claiming their own moral victory, or pointing to one excuse or another, citing whatever metric they weren’t defeated on.
Of course, the only metric that matters is the scoreline. It needs repeating: the whole point of football is to score more goals than your opponent. The saying going around, even from professional footballers, is that the better team lost. Well, it didn’t. If you need the proof then you can simply consult the scoreline, which was invented to determine who played the best.
David de Gea did make a string of brilliant saves. Arsenal racked up shot after shot as they chased the game once they had gone 2-0 down. It has been said that if you recreated the game on Football Manager then you would hoik your laptop out of the window at the sheer injustice and improbability of it all.
It is fair to be hugely frustrated, but matches like this happen every season. Not with as much attention, or with as many talented players on the pitch, but that is the only reason this is a talking point.
Arsenal and their fans should remember that trying to buy the best goalkeeper you can is an option given to all clubs. There are 11 men on a team, and as Jose Mourinho didn’t sell Phil Jones or Chris Smalling this summer, it is fair to assume that one reason he is so keen to keep De Gea is that he recognises his defensive value.
You don’t want to have your ‘keeper forced into so many saves, but if you accept you have buffoons ahead of him, then you need to have the best one in the world. It is not cheating to use your goalkeeper. Criticising United for relying on De Gea is like criticising Chelsea for looking to Eden Hazard for inspiration. Both players stand out with their brilliance – bully for the clubs.
There are two things that Arsenal should take from their defeat. One is that against the top clubs, when they had chance of victory, they blew it with their carelessness. It is a pattern which it seems will repeat forever.
This is not a moral failure but it is a failure to learn from mistakes and improve. They would not have chased the game so frantically, and United would not have been content to sit back and invite shots, if they had not gone 2-0 up so quickly.
The second is that if Arsenal played in such a manner again, clumsy at the back but incisive up front, they would probably win against any English club they faced, including United. There are reasons to be content following a loss, and the general showing on the pitch is one of them.
Early mistakes notwithstanding, Arsenal did well enough to think the Champions League places are in sight this season.
But what you can’t take away from the game is that the best team lost. To think that is the case misses the fundamental point of football, and will doom Arsenal and others to more frustrating and embarrassing defeats.
source: Yahoo.com
