For the Love of the Game...?

Last night BBC1's regular sports magazine show 'Inside Sport' was handed over to former England Cricketer Ed Smith.

Smith, who is now a successful journalist with The Times, had put together an interesting and engaging documentary examining the question: 'Is Professionalism Killing Sport'.

The program focussed on a number of sports, drawing from interviews with psychologists, coaches and high profile stars such as Ryan Giggs, jockey A P McCoy and Usain Bolt; as well as Smith's own personal experience. Smith confessed that his childhood love of cricket became further from the truth and harder to recapture with the increasing success of his career. The higher his status and stock rose, naturally so rose the stress and pressure to perform.

Numerous people on the show concurred with the opinion that as the stakes and the pressure rise, things become impossible to enjoy. The meticulous preparation exemplified by Clive Woodward's reign in charge of the England rugby team - whilst it led to unparalleled success - also created an environment of analysis, statistical insight and repetition. In such a cold clinical system, where is the room for messing about, laughing, having fun?

Interestingly, Ryan Giggs was not so supportive of this view. He argued that football thrives on the instinctive, the maverick and the extraordinary - stating (perhaps modestly) that he was never thinking when he produced his best moments on the football pitch. He spoke in glowing terms about the maestro Eric Cantona, and the fact that he produced such incredible genius time and again, but always in such a natural and instinctive manner.

I was so pleased to hear this from Giggs and rejoiced in the fact that the documentary put forward conflicting viewpoints.

Growing up, my hero was Matthew Le Tissier. Even trying to remove the obvious bias, I find it hard to concede that there was a more gifted, natural and instinctive player in the world at the time that Le Tissier was at his best (1993-95) but one thing that is completely unarguable is the stamp that he left on my young footballing psyche.

Le Tiss always produced some incredible stuff on the pitch. Flicks, touches, vision, and a showreel of goals that is just ridiculous; YouTube it, you won't regret it. It seemed impossible to think that he ever felt that the professional status had altered or lessened the way he played the game and the enjoyment that he derived from it.

Because of this, I have always tried things on a pitch that with my limited ability I probably shouldn't. Football is a game after all, it should be played for fun and why not try and be expressive when playing it. Lionel Messi is the best player in the world, he has won the European Cup twice, the FIFA World Player of the Year and is only 23 - and he never looks like the weight of professionalism is weighing him down.

Granted, picking Cantona, Giggs, Le Tissier and Messi as your proof that football is a different kettle of fish might be a slightly unfair subject group - but I am going to do it anyway. I think the reason these players are able to play in such a manner even with the weight of the world on them is due to the inherent nature of the game. With rugby, horse racing, athletics, cycling and in particular cricket, there is an intense amount of concentration and discipline required due to the nature of the sport. Football is a more fast-paced, fluid and ultimately chaotic sport than any of these others and no matter how much preparation goes into anything, it can all be undone instantly with a moment of unstoppable genius.

Jose Mourinho has built a career of success purely on the strategy of ignoring everything I have just said, and clearly footballers do need to concentrate intensely and are under extreme pressure - think how many tight games are settled on one mistake - but I still believe there is so much room for expression in the beautiful game that it should never, at any level, be a completely robotic and functional exercise in concentration and stress.

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You may be feeling like you have just lost 3 minutes of your life to an argument that never really reached a proper conclusion. Well friend, you are probably right. So why not comment and give me your stance on whether footballers should stop enjoying it and play like disciplined Jose-bots; or allow the natural flair and expression to come out and give us the moments that last forever...

And here is a video to reward your patience and continued support