Teachers and Coaches must rein in their passions

Coach's passion admirable, but he took it too far



By Rohit Brijnath

I COME here not to bury Radojko Avramovic nor to praise him. He is a decent man but guilty of the indecent football act.

We can't vilify coaches who abuse referees across the planet and then excuse it when it is from our own. We must laud a man who stands hunched over at the touchline as if swollen with passion, but can't excuse him when he is unable to contain it.

There is a line in football, there must be. And literally, and figuratively, he crossed it.

The referee that day in China was lousy. This is not in question. He gave a penalty he shouldn't have and didn't give a penalty he should have. But this is also football. Unfairness - depending on the colour of your shirt - is at the heart of this sport. Every day an offside, a dive, a shirt pulled turns it into an opera. Which, of course, draws us in.

Fans will holler, tear their hair and it is fine. This is their entertainment. Coaches will have apoplectic fits, gesticulate wildly and this is fine, too. But to a point. Because the field is their office. They are part of the play, they are governed by rules. They have to be, else chaos rules.

Singapore football is humble, its talent pool limited, many of its rivals better-funded. It is a sport searching for oxygen. It is disadvantaged enough. To add an errant referee to the mix is almost perversely cruel. Avramovic might have wanted to eat the referee's heart for dinner. Uncooked.

This is understandable.

He might have felt a symbolic act as coach was required, as if his rage was a demonstration to his wounded players that he felt for them, he was one of them, he was there for them.

This is also understandable.

But equally understandable is the notion that all action has consequence. Ironically, it is precisely what Avramovic must be teaching his players. Keep your cool. Don't react. Harness emotion. Don't get sent off. Especially in the heat of the moment, especially when it matters. You have to wonder, has he gently undermined his own lessons?

Avramovic has said he wanted to protect his players. This we like. The coach as champion of his team. White knight and all. The issue is the avenue of protest. Then, wildly, on the pitch or later behind closed doors? The point is the cost of protest. This we may not like so much.

In effect, by protecting his team, he has now left them defenceless. Now they will not have him on the bench. Now his players will miss his direction and have said so themselves. We can argue four matches is too harsh, but still it might have been two, or three. What would have been worth it?

Sport is absurdly illogical, which is how we like it. So we might ask: Will the ban in fact bind his team more tightly? Will it, inadvertently, drive his players to prove themselves for him. Will they repay his uncontrolled rage by playing with a controlled one? We shall see.

Let us be fair to Radojko Avramovic. Let us say this is an aberration from a coach who has never been sent off for Singapore before. Let us be honest and say we kind of like his fervour. Let us also be clear. He was wrong.

rohitb@sph.com.sg