Being successful deforms us
Being successful deforms us
Pep's quotes following City's 4-2 win spoke to the fire that is extinguished when people achieve dreams. Reconciling that hunger, in the face of deforming success, feel like an impossible task.
Guardiola’s scathing indictment following what otherwise would’ve been a joyous celebration of a 4-2 comeback against Tottenham has not left my conscious since numerous interview clips saturated social media.
Guardiola, in what felt like a hail Mary attempt at salvaging the personality of a cohort he doesn’t completely recognise, spoke on the players and home fans’ lack of fire born out of the comfort that comes with success.
And this is not a new and unspoken concept. It’s not a concept reserved for the elite in sport either. I’d hedge a bet on calling it a universal truth.
As the noise of Thursday’s reflections faded into the night, I stumbled upon ‘procrastination (broke)’ — a song released that day by YouTube producer ‘bvtman' featuring J. Cole. The song’s release came about through a beautiful series of events in which Cole, as one of the planet’s most successful and talented rappers, was at one of many reappearing road’s end.
In search for a spark, to re-ignite the feeling and hunger that inspired the achievements of adolescence and early adulthood, Cole went to YouTube, typing in ‘J Cole type beat’. Bvtman’s produced instrumental was the one Cole wrote to before sending him the recorded version as a sort of thank you for his dedication alongside the millions trying to make their lofty ideals a reality.
The 2 minutes 59 of J Cole introspection attempted to make sense of trying to produce greatness after greatness had already been achieved.
Success for Cole meant getting up out of the mud, producing music incessantly given his need to sign the longly sought after record deal. The stakes aren’t as high and the drive isn’t all-encompassing once you stand upon the imagined pedestal that inspired all of that dedication. When Guardiola sharply emphasised Arsenal’s ‘two decades’ without a Premier League in the post-match interviews, he spoke to that same idea. Arsenal’s boyish squad are the J Cole tirelessly working with an enthusiasm that demands they get their record deal whilst Manchester City’s 4 Premier League titles in half a decade mirrors the Jermaine Cole that sits and reflects as one of the game’s most accomplished, deformed by success.
“Plus, it don't help that I'm rich now
So that means that I don't gotta deal
With stress of these creditors, callin' my cellular
Like that young rapper that don't got a deal
But do got the skill and do got the will
To make it no matter how long that it takes
For labels to see you or a song that'll break
And the rest of the world to catch on that he's great”— J. Cole, procrastination (broke)
Guardiola singled out Rico Lewis, Julian Alvarez and Nathan Ake for their passion. The (new) academy graduate and captain of the U18s last season, the (new) 22 year old fiery Argentinian, signed for 15m from the Argentinian first division and the (new) defensive starter who, through previous campaigns was given minutes in crumbs at City or played for Bournemouth closer towards the bottle of the league. For all three of these players, there is a pure need to perform, succeed and prove a point. There is no assumption that their place is a given. Each moment is therefore cherished and through that, fire is born.
Not only does that bode well for the execution of various on-field instructions but the permeating effect of electric enthusiasm and optimism cannot be understated, club-wide. Football can be a lonely, cold, impersonal space.
I’ve often posed the question, ‘who coaches the coach?’ upon reflecting on the impossible job. For coaches like Guardiola who spend however much time alone, the enthusiastic and happy aren’t just necessary for squad dynamics to amass three points weekly, but to have the cold Manchester days feel brighter. Ten Hag’s quotes are continually dotted with mentions of smiles with Marcus Rashford being the man most referred to. From the outside, Casemiro’s beaming nature seems to have had a transformative effect on mood in the red half of Manchester too. Alvarez, Rashford, Saka — the intangibles those sort of players bring with them form the framework for the successful over the long season.
Cole’s song is seasoned with lyrics of vulnerability and honesty that speak from the voice of those successful. Most words throughout the song almost feel as if they could be in response to Guardiola’s complaints, expressing feelings players might be embodying, and not in a combative way of response either but in a way that agrees. In fact, there seems to be feelings of being lost, having strayed from the path wanting to return but not knowing how to become that old, hungry self.
How can the inexperienced, young, past me have been better? Not at everything but at something so valuable? That’s a thought hard to reconcile with. Growth is attached to improving so to lose something you want to keep ahold of in the process is the most bitter of things.
Cole’s bars alongside Guardiola’s exasperated appeals have personally occupied mental real estate on the basis of how utterly fascinating this mental battle is and the subjectivity and unknowns attached to solving that problem.
Motivation once you’ve succeeded has to come not from wanting to achieve what you’ve already achieved. The potency of that driver has waned. Perhaps it has to come from something intrinsic — Cristiano’s longevity and success being driven by his need to be immortalised in the ink of the history books. Perhaps it has to come from something intrinsic in the form of a duty. For the Muslim, with a belief in God that informs their daily choices ahead of their wants and needs, the duty to be proactive and maximally determined, in all facets of life, is a virtuous and encouraged trait that brings about good deeds the Muslim is continually pursuing for a greater reason.
Perhaps that intrinsic duty is to a family member, dead or alive, for who if you dedicate success to it’d mean far more. For the sibling or parent that sacrificed money, time, and relationships to allow you to perform on this stage — would it not be appropriate to play every game with the hunger of the academy graduate for them?
Or perhaps that intrinsic duty is the duty to our younger self, for the child that grew up around a small TV watching Zinedine Zidane grace the field, dreaming of occupying that very stage one day. The younger self who played with torn footballs in the street for hours upon hours would not understand why the professional self would not give everything.
“Now, I push the Lambo' truck down in the 'Ville. Hoping I connect with somethin' that's real…’ With those lyrics, the accomplished Cole in his self-awareness returns to his hometown, in his Lamborghini, hoping the tough environment he knows so well reignites some of that same fire that brought him sales, success and awards to begin with.
For the elite footballers, that same separation exists — lavish yet isolated lives of relative comfort with challenges coming in completely new forms. Perhaps for the Lambo Truck-driving footballers, revisitation (or at least reflection) of their ‘Ville’ and the faces of the passionate youth that still reside there, takes them back to their past self…the self that they’ve lost.
This isn’t to blame the players or fans entirely either. The peak looks to be a utopia as you stand at the bottom but upon arrival, novel challenges arise and have to be acknowledged with tact.
I often reread Marcelo Bielsa’s evergreen musings on this human condition:
“The moments in my life when I have improved are closely related to failure; the moments in my life when I have regressed are closely related to success.
Being successful deforms us as human beings, it relaxes us, it plays tricks on us, it makes us worse individuals, it helps us fall in love with ourselves.
Failure is the complete opposite, it forms us, it makes us more solid, it brings us closer to our convictions, it makes us more coherent.
Never allow failure to deteriorate your self-esteem. When you win, the admiration messages you get can be confusing.
They stimulate self-love and that can always deform you. When you lose, the exact opposite happens. What matter is being noble with all the resources you use.”
With something so intangible, there isn’t one solution.
The magnets on the tactics board can’t be moved around to reignite that fire. I don’t know what ‘the’ solution is because the solution differs by context. This is a phenomenon that deals completely in the shades of grey, rather than in black or white.
The easiest and most natural solution comes in the form of Bielsa’s observation, for failure to occur before that inspires the hunger and success that follows but it is the impossible job of the manager to steer the heart of the team away from what is natural to then go on periods of dominance — the three-peat.
Given the way Guardiola’s words have etched my mind, perhaps his uncharacteristic public scathing has had the same effect on the satiated Manchester City and their crowd. Perhaps this was the solution that acts to catalyse a second-half of the season revival.
Pep has articulated a sub-plot that gives the players and fans of Manchester City the ability to write an ending to. Where that story goes this season is entirely dependant on their penmanship and their ability to subvert expectations — to write the ending nobody expects.
