Premier League – Brendan Rodgers should be taken seriously … as he has always done

It was not the prettiest in the FA Cup final, no, but it was actually the most dramatic and, above all, the most moving. The fifth time was finally right for Leicester City, the only English champions club still waiting to add the world’s oldest trophy to their list. Let’s leave the famous “Sports facts” Also, including a few millimeters offside of Ben Chilwell, who broke the hearts of Chelsea supporters in the 89th minute. Let us also leave the extraordinary parade of Casper Schmeichel on a goal from Yuri Tylemains and a shot of Mason Mount, which we all saw behind his net.

What we will remember will be the uproar of the entire Wembley audience, the fort of the entire people celebrating – if only for the time of one meeting – the first victory over this damned virus. What we will remember will be a meetup as if football still knows how to present us, a miraculous measure against all the super leagues crafted by billionaires who only know which games can be sold. The embrace between Brendan Rodgers and his boss Ayyavat Sriwardhanaprabha will be remembered – “Top”, as his father was “Vichai” – at the final whistle.

Leicester fans were not alone when the two fell into each other’s arms, when “Top” bothered, raising the trophy in the direction of fans who know how much they are doing. He is indebted to his family. Above the grandstand, a large banner commemorates Vichai’s memory, who died in a helicopter crash at the Gate of King Power Stadium two and a half years ago. It is true that there is no greater happiness than the benefits of suffering.

Football hipster hips

At the center of this triumph of emotions was a man who is not known to surrender in the face of the wrath of his sensibilities. Usually, Brendan Rodgers is careful to hide anything that can be interpreted as a sign of fragility in him, including the expression of emotion for which he would become a toy. Unlike Klopp or Tuchel, he does not make his technical field a theatrical platform on which his team’s body and soul are involved in every action to include the role of a coach. We see him writing some notes in his notebook. We hear that he calls back on the order (the order he has defined, the order he has given) the player of his voice and, what has become his trademark, putting two fingers in his mouth and Paris from Prevert’s films Whistling and carne like Key Titty. But he never loses his temper. Is it by nature, or by calculation? Probably both.

Along with listening to him, we always realize that he is doing everything to be taken seriously, as if, deep within himself, he fears that we will see a kind of ‘cheater’ in him. , As long as he is a form of anxious narcissist, which would not be a contradiction except for this. It will not be contradictory. This syndrome often occurs in people whose occupation or occupation is forced to live and work in the eyes of others and who live in fear of judgment despite being confident of their worth. This insecurity can also serve as an inspiration. As tragic actress Sarah Barnhart once told an actress who did not know what stage fright is, “mademoiselle, you will know it when you have talent”.

Also, it becomes necessary for some to build defense mechanisms. In Rodgers’ case, this translates into the need to impose it on others that he does not always master the skill he believes in. When he was in Swansea I had the opportunity to meet him. Then it was already clear that this young manager (he was not yet forty) had “something” – it was enough to play to reassure his swans. But it was also clear that he felt an eagerness to justify himself by exposing an inherently unusual course and filling his speech with Castilian references and borrowings, something embarrassing. Like many coaches, he came more and more as the choice in his profession, when a genetic knee defect forced him to give up his career as a professional footballer when he was only twenty years old. Jose Mourinho – a name he used to cite all the time, as if Jose should always serve as his surety – had given him custody of the youth, then of Chelsea Reserve.

Rodgers heard that everyone knows how he sought advice for his retraining in Spain, at his own expense to learn from former players and technicians such as Valencian Juan Sol, Madrilenian Jose Luis Albiol (uncle of defender de Villarreal Raul Albiol) Were traveling , Or FC Barcelona young coach Alex Garcia, the club whose game he admired more than anyone else. This person from the Catholic community of Northern Ireland (now he defines his identity as follows) “British and Irish”) Wanted to be seen as a footballing metropolitan. a “Hipster”, to be honest. This was his way of claiming a coaching personality at odds with the ideal of a traditional British manager. “My aim is to prove that the players of our country can play like Barca”, He told me then.

A transferred image

Brendan Rodgers of Leicester City is no longer the Brendan Rodgers of Swansea, or simply no more. If the style of its teams has evolved, its “thinking” Football (a word he likes “visit”) Has not changed radically. Of Status game For Barcelona that made Swansea a different team in the championship, and even after their promotion to the Premier League, he switched to his game of Leicester, still able to control the ball (Leicester, 55.6 With% possession, sixth in this ranking in PL in points), but even more formidable than having control of the ball.

The game has evolved, the man has also changed, well, a little. However, the image he presents in England is beyond what it should be in terms of what he has achieved. The people who take care of you are difficult to take seriously. It is his personality who wants it, a mixture of insecurity and self-centeredness, a personality that we can compare to David Brent’s character in “The Office”, which is not a compliment. Rodgers seems unable to laugh at himself. He also seems unable to understand that the image of a football thinker he hears to himself is portrayed in public plays against him – when in the microcosm, no one doubts his abilities.

It is still extraordinary that we sometimes present our time in Liverpool as a failure – relatives, but “Failure” Despite everything – when he had led the club so close to the expected title since 1990, and with a workforce that Luis Suarez left, Jurgen Klopp did not come close to doing so well. In the same way, when we salute the season that the unbeaten Rangers achieved in the Scottish Championships with Steven Gerrard, in a way we did not welcome two consecutive triples won with Rodgers, with whom Bhoyes set a record Was 69 games unbeaten in all Scottish competitions, which will undoubtedly never be defeated.

For Leicester, perhaps it should be remembered that this well-managed club, which only failed to qualify for the Champions League last year as the pandemic broke its momentum, costing only $ 20 million. In everything and everything since Rodgers replaced pure Euro Claude Puell, and in terms of income, he is only tenth in the Premier League. Let us know that on this Tuesday night, Fox won against Chelsea and Europe will once again reach them. And, perhaps we will finally realize that this clumsy communicator is very eager to get respect, even to praise, quite simply, one of the best trainers of his generation.