Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 5 May 2014 issue)

Dear Kam,
Something really important happened last week, I think you know what I’m talking about. So, what do you think?
Never Walk Alone

Something happened last weekend that really grabbed my attention and has kept me wondering all week, and I’m not talking about President Barack Obama coming to town. Instead I’ve been thinking about the truly big global news story: Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0. I really don’t want to get all footbally (again) but the manner of Chelsea’s victory has left me wondering about what victory means. Can short-term success sow the seeds for long-term failure? Is there really any such thing as a moral victory, and even if there is, is it worth anything?

Just to give some context to people who don’t follow football, Liverpool are (or were) on the verge of winning the English Premier League title for the first time, although they won the old-style First Division back in 1990. Liverpool dominated English and European football in the 1980s with great style and attacking fl air. They won every trophy available and, perhaps more importantly, they won millions of new fans around the world. Since then, these now middle-aged fans have remained passionately loyal as they have waited for the glory days to return. There have been some highlights along the way, most notably the Champions League victory in 2005 (the final match was the most exciting game of football I have ever seen), but the really big one, the English Premier League title, has eluded them. They’ve had to witness their bitter rivals Manchester United completely dominate the game and vast amounts of oil money being pumped into Chelsea and Manchester City. The chances of ever winning the Premier League title appeared to be slipping away forever and yet suddenly, they found themselves within touching distance of ultimate victory. After an astonishing run of 11 victories, playing some of the most exhilarating football that anyone has seen for years, they needed just two victories and a draw in their final three matches. And then, José Mourinho’s Chelsea came to town. Liverpool lost. They were magnificent but it was sheer folly.

Mourinho is a footballing genius and my admiration for him rises daily, but I really can’t stand him. He will do whatever it takes to win a match. Within the first few minutes of the match, his players were rolling around on the ground after each minor tackle as if they had been shot and they were deliberately wasting time at every opportunity. Every team will use time-wasting tactics but always at the end of a match when they’re trying to defend a slender victory. What made this different was that Chelsea were wasting time in the first seconds of the match. Liverpool fans were livid, but by employing these spoiling tactics, Mourinho was using Liverpool fans to his advantage.

I don’t do judo, but I know that the key principle of the martial art is to use the opponent’s momentum to your own advantage. If he tries to punch you, you avoid his fist but grab hold of that punch and encourage it forward so that he falls onto the ground and you remain standing. It hasn’t been proven why it happens, but the team that is playing at its home stadium is statistically more likely to win. Liverpool had that home advantage and yet Mourinho used Liverpool’s fans to his advantage. By making them angry, he made the already passionate crowd more raucous and they urged their team forward, into a trap. Chelsea defended and defended, Liverpool attacked and attacked. Napoleon said the best form of defence is attack, but committing numbers to attack means thinning your defence. All Chelsea had to do was defend well (not an easy thing to do) and wait for Liverpool to make a single mistake. In the course of 90 minutes, Liverpool made two mistakes and Chelsea won 2-0.

There is strategy and there are tactics. Strategy is the long-term aim and tactics are the short-term actions you make to get there. Strategically, Liverpool needed a boring 0-0 scoreline to win the Premier League and yet they threw it all away on the emotionally driven tactical decision to win a legendary victory over Chelsea. A victory they didn’t need because 0-0 would have been a true victory. Mourinho conducted a masterclass on strategy and tactics and he won a famous victory for Chelsea. Or did he?

Mourinho’s job is to win on the football pitch, and he’s doing that. It’s not his job to win new fans for Chelsea, but in the business of football, gaining new fans is the ultimate task. Liverpool foolishly stuck to their principles of stylish attacking football and yet this has, without doubt, won them new fans around the world. Unlike in the world of democratic politics, fans don’t vote, but they are the constituency that really matters. Once gripped, a football fan is statistically more likely to die than change allegiance. Fans fill the stadium, buy the products, win TV ratings and boost advertising revenue. Fans make the club a viable business. If you take away Roman Abramovich’s oil money, Chelsea would collapse as a business, and who knows what will happen if Vladimir Putin’s adventure in Ukraine brings widened sanctions. But if Liverpool keep playing and winning with the stylish, exciting football that fans like to watch, then it will keep growing. If millions more Asians are learning how to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone or saving up their yuan, baht, rupiah or ringgit to make that pilgrimage to Anfield, Liverpool Inc will be the ultimate victor.

This will come as scant consolation to Liverpool fans who have probably seen their title chances disappear. Liverpool were tactically and strategically inept against Chelsea. Liverpool should have been sensible and should have tempered their attacking principles, but at least, Liverpool have principles, principles that fans believe in. Results on the pitch matter, but sometimes, a seeming victory can blind us to where victory can really lie.

Dear Kam,
My question is simple, Barack Obama?
Sceptic

So, Barack Obama came to town last week. I avoided the whole thing and stayed at home because I didn’t want to get stuck in any traffic jams. I didn’t watch him speak at Universiti Malaya, but I read the transcript and was deeply saddened by the poor quality questions that were asked. On the one hand, I respect anyone who has the courage to stand up and ask a question because I don’t think I would. But if you’re given an opportunity like that, then surely you have to do a bit better.

Reprinted with the kind permission of