BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Look at it this way, life sucks.

I've been following this unhappy saga over the past year and it in many ways reminds me of Andriy Shevchenko's similar predicament in Chelsea before he was sent back to AC Milan where he should have never left. There's also Peter Crouch who also left Liverpool under similar circumstances. It isn't confined to football as we saw the Toronto Raptors' TJ Ford and Jose Calderon not get along since they were both playing the same position and one had to sit. We all know how that went down.

Read this first and check out my commentary after because I'm going to allude to someone in the Ateneo varsity. Gut it out!

From Associated Press January 12, 2009
Out-of-favour Bayern Munich striker Lukas Podolski, set to leave the Bundesliga champions at the end of the season, has not shown enough determination to earn regular selection, coach Juergen Klinsmann said.

Podolski, who joined Bayern in 2006, has this year largely been left on the bench behind regular starters Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose.

Podolski, who had a superb 2006 World Cup under Klinsmann and has continued to score goals for the national side, has said he wants to leave, with former club Cologne the most likely destination.

The addition of striker Landon Donovan, on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy and the signing of Croatian international Ivica Olic to join Bayern from next season has further hampered Podolski's hopes of a successful future at the Munich club.

''It hurts to see a special talent who just stops and does not progress because he cannot deal with the situation of having two players in front of him,'' Klinsmann told Bayern's website.

''I would have hoped he had some anger, which he would express in his game and he would say to himself: 'I will show them what I have got''', Klinsmann said.

''Bayern is a club where it is either or. Either a player faces the challenge and says 'I will fight my way into the team'... or it is better to change your environment.''

Bayern are in talks with Cologne and hope to agree a deal by the end of the month, Bayern manager Uli Hoeness said last week.

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Yes, it's tough when you've gone from "the man" to "the bench." You go to practice everyday and yet you've been displaced. Then your playing time sucks. Any you start to wonder that if you make a mistake will I go back to the bench. With everything you do, you look at your coach rather nervously. Even when you win your body language is different. And you start to ask, "Why am I doing this?" It eventually affects your enthusiasm and greatly erodes your confidence. You even ask if, maybe "I'll just study na lang."

More often than not, we are put in a situation that we do not like and are not in control and it begs the question, "how do we deal with it?"

What can we do if it is the coach's system/style and those are his rules?

Ah, coaches. Some are good tacticians but not necessarily good teachers. Some are good in motivating while their strategies are well... wanting. It's rare that you find one who can put on the hats of teacher, father, psychologist, and leader. The same goes for a player too. Like one on a current Ateneo team who loves to talk smack at his teammates for the slightest mistake yet oft misses practices himself.

I once wrote about former Ateneo basketball player Jeff De Guzman who all his basketball playing life in Mendiola and Loyola Heights was constantly overlooked. He'd play well and get some good minutes too but he was never in favor. Whether it was a sound decision to get cut, whether because he never was the favorite of the coach (shame on the idiot who misreads this), or whether he was never good enough, Jeff tried his best but eventually moved on.

Maybe it was good while it lasted but there it is.

Sometimes, people forget that these are kids and aren't up yet on the EQ (emotional quotient FYI). Here's something former French player Marcel Desailly once said, When he (Thierry Henry) came to Arsenal (after a disappointing stint with Juventus), Arsene Wenger spoke to him and put him in his correct position (playing offense and not as a defender) and gave him a lot of confidence. Players definitely need confidence; it is fifty percent of the player."

But for now, it's about dealing with it and winning back your slot. It's shows your character and your determination. Like I always say, one of life's basic tenets is that, "life sucks." The sooner we all come to terms with that and deal with it, then the better it is for you. Now go out there and give it that One Big Fight. When it's all said and done you can say you tried, laugh about it, or just move on.

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