This is an almost philosophical chapter. If you look not only at the history of mankind but also at evolution as a whole, you will see that it was precisely this “judging by results” that brought evolution forward. Two Neanderthals went into a cave, a bear caught one of them. One action, one result, one conclusion. Without knowing words for it, the survivor realised, “Cave = danger. Could be bear coming.” While he certainly didn’t make any probability calculations along the lines of, “There’s a tiger coming outside, a bear inside. Which is more likely?” Or, to make the complexity that is actually required apparent: “Which of the enemies, if I encounter one, do I have a better chance of surviving?”
The conclusion is simple: avoid such dangers if you can. If you can’t, you must intuitively – and often quickly – decide which is more threatening, greater. These strategies develop individually, but even more so collectively. Many of these conclusions were reached purely intuitively and independently of probabilities. Only it just turns out to make sense in nature. Nor does it only apply to dangers. One achieves any sense of achievement in a sport, in a game, against almost any opponent, and draws the conclusion that one is good at it, and that one should repeat it, no matter how – and whether at all – representative the result. So this is also how talent develops. In short, judging by results is important and useful in life. As often as one may hear that one has to have certain experiences oneself: One relies almost constantly on the experiences of humanity, if not those of any other living beings.
Man later took it a step further: In the case of an arbitrary, but nevertheless to a certain extent coincidental result, he sought a logical explanation in retrospect and even an inevitability for its occurrence. This ability to analyse may still make sense, but one can raise an admonishing finger here. For it is quite possible to come to the wrong judgement.
This is precisely the transition to sport, especially football: as soon as one fundamentally seeks an explanation that is outside the elements of chance – which are to a large extent even deliberately built in for entertainment purposes – and above all does not allow the partly clearly recognisable luck (of course on the opposite side of the corresponding amount of bad luck) as an argument, one finally enters what is generally regarded as dangerous black ice, on which one can both slip and fall, and in this particular case — since it is thin at the same time — collapse. The formulated results distort reality to some extent considerably. But this is precisely the point at which (especially German) reporting has arrived.
Very often, only a hair’s breadth separates the “collective deep sleep” from the much-cited “catastrophic lack of finishing” in the true sense of the word. And here, at the latest, the absurdity becomes obvious. The attacker either missed the (almost) perfect entry by a hair’s breadth or – even better – the goal itself by this small distance, because the ball hit the inside post and bounced out.
In the game of football, in which one single goal is often the deciding factor, which is not only caused or prevented by a tiny detail as described above, but just as often by a single referee’s whistle – here the penalty is given, there it is not, here it is recognised as being offside, there it is let go, all decisions are questionable, disputed – one simply has to include that little bit of luck in the chain of argumentation.
Players, coaches and managers do it occasionally. They simply know that it is so. On the other hand, they have also judged on the basis of the result of the media reaction that such an argumentation is not simply waved through, insofar as they use the little word luck – but above all bad luck — only very sparingly and only after they have already sent three other attempts at explanation in advance, which have quieted the currently interviewing media representative.
By the way: There are very often games in which nothing is going on in the sense of “this team is better”, so it is an even game. Nevertheless, a goal is scored just like that, it doesn’t even have to be “out of the blue”, because perhaps, despite the balance, both are striving to score and even create chances, one of which simply goes in – for this or that team. Of course, it can also be a purely fortuitous goal, which neither one way nor the other has been in the offing. Afterwards, the team behind tries to equalise somehow, no question. The leading team – according to the current state of affairs – tries to keep tight at the back and lurk for counterattacks. Nowadays, however, opening up one’s own back line does not really work. In other words, the counter-attacks against the exposed defence are more likely to score goals than the counter-attacks that the team itself has launched. Of course, this does not escape the attention of the suddenly alert reporter. After the third counterattack opportunity, his verdict is: “At the latest now they have earned the lead.
Well, good thinking: after all, they only had the counterattacks because they scored the (accidental, as recognised by the reporter) goal. If it was still 0-0, they wouldn’t have these admittedly promising attacks. This once prompted a fairly well-known coach – by the name of Christoph Daum – to spill the beans in an effort to make a point to a non-learning demographic, a small minority — namely the reporters — by uttering the following words: “Goals are very important for the course of the game.” Not unexpectedly, far more than laughter flew around his ears the next day – it was rather scorn and derision – for such silly wisdom, which of course was not even remotely understood.
Because: He was always right. He was referring specifically to the course of the game. You see a completely different game after a goal, that’s just the way it is. If you want to judge the game on the basis of the scenes after the goal, you are certainly making a mistake. Because the scenes would never have been comparable. Of course, one occasionally hears insights such as “up to the opening goal it was an even game” or something like that, which in terms of the level of insight is roughly comparable to an observed somersault from a standing position by a normal mortal who previously had trouble doing a roll on the bar, but still. However, the gentleman would probably be overtaxed if he had to draw further conclusions…
If one were interested in a certain form of truth in an interview after a game, then almost every one would go like this: “Why did you lose today?” Correct answer: “Because we were unlucky.” Because, as will be seen a little later – in the section on football and betting – it is always true, the only question is how much bad luck it was. Here, explanatorily correct but probably confusingly, only so much can be stated: Was one more unlucky than one needed to be lucky? If so, then something like that is already considered a “deserved defeat”, although the statement about bad luck – one had it – is nevertheless true.
Rather, the following applies here: The reporter’s question: “Why did you lose?” is already unsuccessful. Because: it only allows one recognised inevitability as an explanation, namely that which the questioner himself has gained on the basis ——- of knowledge of the result. And, one thing simply has to be mentioned here in praise of the media representatives who have been so badly plucked: not only can they count flawlessly – in the number range 1 to 12 (there has never been more than that for a team in the Bundesliga; insofar unchecked as it looks above that) – they can even flawlessly establish the equality or inequality of two numbers in this space plus – listen and be amazed – the correct direction of the inequality. 1 is greater than 0, 2 is greater than 1, 2 is equal to 2 and 0 is equal to 0, but 3 is less than 4. This always works, even with other values.
So you know one thing, and that is responsible for the omnipotence: how did the game turn out? If once again a coach tries to point out that his team had more possession, more corner kicks, more chances to score, and in this sense they lacked luck, then the last word still remains with Mister Allwissend: “Aren’t you making it a bit too easy for yourself?” Only to add: “The bare figures speak a different language: opponents 2, yours 0. What else do you say now?” Finally he relents: “Yes, you’re right, I realise it now too. We deserved to lose. Have a nice day.” The man left alone then: “Thin-skinned, that man. Probably because his chair has already been sawed through.”
