Football’s Life Lessons I

Football is the most popular sport, played and watched by millions of people world wide.

Football is more than a game because it teaches us a lot about life so let’s take a look at some of the lessons we can learn from following the game.

1. People don’t remember all the things you’ve done for them rather they will hold unto the one you didn’t do. Robin van Persie has scored a lot of important goals for Man United this season but took a lot of stick for missing a glorious chance late in the game against Chelsea.

2. Success breeds haters. Lionel Messi and his FC Barcelona team are hated by many because of the success they’ve recorded.

3. The media will make and mar you. David Beckham married spice girl, Victoria Adams in 1999 and the pair were dubbed “Posh & Becks” by the British media. A few years later, British tabloids offered Rebecca Loos a whooping £5m to reveal all the details of her affair with the football star.

4. Competition is healthy and brings out the best in us. Javier Hernandez has really improved in his all round play this season because of the emergence of Danny Welbeck and signing of Robin van Persie.

5. Football enlightens us on geography and makes us conversant with some places we had never heard of. Eg Andorra, San Marino, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Catalunya, Lichtenstein, Basque country, Andalucia country, etc.

6. Football helps you become familiar with some names of the players/coaches and the countries associated with such names.

7. Nothing is permanent. Life is all about rise and fall. In 2002, Leeds United were in the semi finals of the UEFA Champions League; they play in the English second tier (Championship) today.

8. All is fair in love and war.
If you like complain and moan all day about some refereeing errors that cost your team the match, the match won’t be replayed.

9. Opportunity comes but once, take it! Kenneth Omeruo was relatively unknown prior to the start of AFCON. He was given the chance to play after Efe Ambrose was red carded in the first game, he did well and cemented his place in the team ousting the captain, Joseph Yobo from the starting line up.

10. Football educates one about history, only if you listen to the commentary and don’t make silly noise/arguments during a game. Did you know whenever Tottenham Hotspur plays at home, Arsenal (Highbury days) must play away to prevent traffic jam?

11. It is hard to replace or leave a team player out of the team. Pedro is the one of the most hard-working players I’ve seen, that’s why it’s hard to keep him out of the team at FC Barcelona and International level.

12. Footballers inspire you, you can be anything you want to be if you work hard.

13. Money will always come but what would you do with the money? A lot of footballers have gone from riches to rags because they failed to invest their money properly.

14. Nobody is indispensable. Manchester United won’t become extinct when Sir Alex Ferguson finally retires.

15. Humility is truly a virtue. Ryan Giggs is the most decorated player in the history of English football but he’s laid back and humble, a true example to everyone. See Kanu Nwankwo also.

To be continued

21 Replies to “Football’s Life Lessons I”

  1. I must confess,this ur best write up(if it’s original).Am so inspired.I really luv d last part.’thumpz up bro’

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  2. Nice, football has taught me a lot in life and is still teaching mein terms of management I look up to my club, in terms of cheating I look up on club like that, interms of hardwork I have the guys at the nou camp. Football is really more than a Game!!!!

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  3. Well written however the write-up is biased.You must have noticed that I like balanced reports. It has only shown the positive sides of football. What about the negative sides? Violence, Perpetual hatred and so on. For instance, I have a friend that does not speak to Real Madrid fans, etc

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    1. Football doesn’t support violence and perpetual hatred; it’s a personal problem. Yes, friendly rivalries are in football but these rivalries make the game more interesting and fun to watch. The English are known for hooliganism; Real Madrid and Barcelona are fierce rivals but the players of these teams are friends off the pitch; some fans take it upon themselves to hate everything about the rival clubs.

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  4. I think its a lovely write up , properly constructed and delivered , however , if you can infuse more English vocabularies it would spice up the piece . You have done well Nkooo! Keep it up !

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  5. Giggs is an ass! Balling his siater-in-law for yrs. I think d beef for messi n barca is more amongst africans(esp blacks). Mediocrity mentality. Instead of good things not to come from our family, party,club, etc…let d good thing not come at all. One of d impediments to our overall progress

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  6. Apart frm d joy I get frm watching and playing d beautiful game, d “geography lessons” have bin immense. Forget Ryan, his humble attitude ȋ̊s wot he uses to attract all his sister inlaws. He ȋ̊s a very gud badt gu
    y! Lol

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  7. bro i realy felt ur work. As de would say ” football is jx a game bt wat a game”. Its brilliant of u bringing out such hiden fact of our lovely game from majorly a man utd point of view. Thumbs up bro

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  8. Prof it is part of the lession because in life too if you are successfull, some people even the ones u no sabi go dey beef you for no just reason, just keep calm and keep doing what you are doing or do more sef (messi)

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