Recently, I put together some of my very favorite coaching meltdowns of all time. I was pretty happy with the list, even though there were a few that I simply couldn't include; I wanted to keep it to five, and I am a man of my word. So overall, I thought it was a pretty good list.
In the comments section of that post, though, a man by the name of Steve opened my eyes to something I knew absolutely nothing about.
International coaching meltdowns.
Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm perfectly well aware that there are sports in other parts of the world, and that those sports certainly have coaches, and that those coaches likely flip out all the time. But I have to admit, I'm simply not well-versed enough in the games from around the world to be familiar with all of their coaching rants, raves, and blowups.
But after watching a film clip of the incident that Steve was so kind as to bring to my attention, I may have to take the time to dig into the international game.
This is a clip of a man by the name of Kevin Keegan.
Kevin Keegan is a
legend in British soccer, from what I can gather, and he appears to be
a pretty intense dude on the whole. The rant we see here, which
occurred while Keegan was the manager of the Newcastle United Football
Club, was directed toward the coach of Manchester United (also known
here in the States as David Beckham's old team), Sir Alex Ferguson.
Now, I can say, just in my limited experience with what we like to call
"soccer" and everyone else calls football, that Manchester U is not all
that well liked by the rest of the English Premiere League fans, being
regarded largely as a club full of first-rate tossers. (I think tossers
is correct here; you could probably use wankers as well, but I think
that may be less suitable for polite conversation.) Man U is also
ridiculously successful, sort of like the Yankees in baseball, which is
probably a big part of the reason they aren't particularly popular.
Anyhow,
poorly-researched background aside, this is a pretty effing awesome
blowup. Plenty good enough to make me wish I knew more about the league
that spawned such a glorious piece of footage. After all, a culture
that can bring us the best hooligany the world has to offer is probably
also the sort that could lead to some truly epic meltdowns.
So
to Steve I say this. First off, thank you for reading. I can only hope
you are, in fact, from across the pond, and that I've somehow gone
international. (I'm also morally certain this isn't true, but a man can
dream, can't he?) Second, thank you for the enlightening note; I
consider myself a much richer man this morning for having seen this.
And finally, third, if you happen to know of any crazy cricket coaches
(managers? what do you call the guy who calls for the double switch in
cricket?), I would really, really appreciate a heads up on those, too.
I hear that the Pakistan-India cricket rivalry is a pretty good one.
Maybe something along those lines? I assume Ulster has a football club,
though I could be wrong. If they do, that's got to be a coach with some
serious stress.
Regardless, there is apparently an untapped
goldmine out there (untapped by me, at least), and I will not rest
until I've brought the best of it to you, my loyal readers.
Oh, and one last thing: does anybody know why all the British teams have "United" in their names?
