As a young footballer, one of the coaching tips I can most remember receiving is the safety first defensive strategy of ‘if in doubt, put it out’. The logic behind this was clear: if the ball is in danger of going near your goal and there is no obvious risk-free way to retain possession, then you are far better off putting it out of play or at least as far up the field as possible. As a defender or goalkeeper, there was far less chance of your opponents scoring from here than if you attempted to play the ball across the box or dribble out of trouble.
However, it wasn’t just a mantra in youth football. In my early days of watching the beautiful game at professional level, defenders never seemed to worry about putting the ball into ‘Row Z’ when under pressure, while a hefty boot was a major asset for a goalie. English football has become far more sophisticated since then, and teams have rightly placed a greater emphasis on keeping possession. The sport is better to watch as a result and the ‘sweeper keeper’ has become more and more of an influential role.
The problem is that these days teams frequently end up overplaying in defence. A good tactic becomes a cast-iron requirement that cannot be set aside. The result is that we see plenty of mistakes such as this one by Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy against Leeds.
Mendy is a great goalkeeper and his error is simply illustrative of a wider problem. I could also have highlighted Andre Ramalho’s recent gift for PSV Eindhoven against Rangers or Gabriel’s generosity for Arsenal against Fulham. Too many defences seem too stubborn to simply clear the ball in the old fashion way when required. It is almost as if they might commit some sort of footballing faux pas by daring to smash the ball upfield or out of play on occasion. Teams have become so convinced that playing out from the back is the correct tactic in all circumstances that they would rather risk a costly error than abandon their principles when a traditional clearance is the better option. Their stubbornness can often prove their downfall.
I am not advocating a return to the long-ball game by any means. The failure of England’s men’s teams to develop an assured possession-based game has cost them on too many occasions. However, players must surely be encouraged and empowered to make wise decisions over when ‘if in doubt, put it out’ actually makes sense.
This kind of stubbornness is, of course, not just found in elite football. We see it frequently in the Bible’s accounts of Jesus’ life. Many of the religious leaders of his day were so convinced that Jesus must be in the wrong that they tried anything they could to catch him out. Their stubbornness led to them failing to consider whether he could actually be the Son of God as he claimed. Their methodology was as rigid as that employed by modern Premier League defences. Just as the latter refuse to consider not always playing out from the back, the former refused to consider that Jesus could be anything other than a fraud or a false teacher.
In Mark’s Gospel, we read of a time where Jesus encountered a man with a shriveled hand. On this occasion some of these religious leaders “were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath”. To their mind, if Jesus was to heal this man on God’s holy day, the Sabbath, he must be breaking God’s law rather than showing himself to be God.
Jesus highlights their stubbornness when he asks ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’ The religious leaders remained silent and Mark tells us that Jesus ‘looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts’.
Jesus heals the man, which was surely evidence that he was the Son of God, but instead the religious leaders rejected this and started plotting to kill him. They were convinced their way was right and that Jesus must be wrong and therefore must be opposed.
I’m sure Chelsea fans were left annoyed and frustrated by Mendy’s stubbornness against Leeds and I fear my team Liverpool’s defence will conjure up something similar before the season is over. But this account in Mark’s Gospel shows us that it is more serious to be stubborn about some things than others.
A defence that refuses to boot the ball the clear might concede a calamitous goal, but their team can always recover and equalise. However, if Jesus is ‘the way and the truth and the life’ as he claims, then we would surely be foolish to stubbornly refuse to consider the evidence for that claim.
If the ‘playing out from the back at all costs’ trend continues in professional football this season, then more and more fans will be left bemoaning their team’s stubbornness. But can I challenge you not to be stubborn in dismissing Jesus? The evidence we have is surely worth our full attention because if Jesus is who Mark’s Gospel describes him as, then there is no more important person to know and follow.
Running the Race 