April was a rough month for me. It almost always is. It wasn’t that there was anything going particularly wrong with this blog, rather it was about my mental state at the time. But this post isn’t really about that, it is one particular man. A man who tries very hard at his job, and when he doesn’t get results, he’s called things like a flop, a rich man’s desperate project, past his best, etc. However, for a brief moment in late April, he caused some to literally orgasm in joy as a result of his being lazy. Oh yes, following last year’s completely ignored post on Stoke City, I now present to you Effort’s Fernando Torres.
For as much as he is criticized for pretty much existing at this point, Torres has for the large part had a successful year. Being part of teams that won the FA Cup, Champions League and Euro 2012 is no small feat; he even won the Golden Boot for the latter. But that was many months ago.
What is left is a man who tries so very hard to justify the massive price hanging over him and the undroppability that comes with it. In his wake at Chelsea has come the departure of two managers, the appointment of a third manager who is so well-loved by the supporters that they publicly sing for his predecessor on 16 minutes of every match. All the while, the man who brought him into this situation, Roman Abramovich, is above any criticism. If anything, he falls into the classic case of the sunk cost fallacy.
But back to April. Here was a once great striker, doing his now criticized duty of running into channels and putting in a good shift. At least that’s when he could get onto the pitch as Didier Drogba still made the lone striker role his own at Stamford Bridge. So up they came against Barcelona in the semifinals of the Champions League. Against this generation’s greatest side, Chelsea had scrapped a 1-0 win at home through Drogba.
The second leg was not really as exciting as people may think. Sure there was the John Terry idiocy, and who doesn’t like that when it goes horribly wrong for him. But it was largely Barcelona screwing up chance after chance after chance after chance in one of the most one-sided matches I’ve ever seen at the highest level. But Torres got his moment of glory late on.
As a substitute to replace the exhausted Drogba, Torres lazily tried to tackle the ball off a Barcelona player, and then proceeded to lazily jog up the pitch to wait for Barcelona’s next attack. As luck would have it, Chelsea managed to punt the ball clear and every Barcelona outfield player was within 30 yards of goal. We all know what happened next, Torres in, skip around Victor Valdes and slot it into the open goal, Gary Neville has an orgasm on air. Through sheer luck and his own lack of effort, he wrapped up a “heroic” Chelsea effort to put them into the final.
So the real lesson here is that effort is just one thing that determines an outcome. It’s not good to rely solely on effort to obtain a positive outcome, nor is it the only factor. Pretty much like any form of occupation or hobby it can indicate likelihood of success, but there is a certain amount of luck and talent required to truly succeed. The same goes for blogging too.
Lower Mid-Table 