“If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same, you will be a man my son” —— The Philosopher.
As irrelevant as the game of football may seem to be to life, it is quite amazing how it can go on to tell true stories of life. A set of games played during a particular week in some past season gave me an avenue to ponder over some vital happenings in life as a whole.
Considering the headway a club like “FC Monaco” of France made that season, the story would never have been complete without the mention of the star player Fernando Morientes, who played such a vital role in getting the club to the finals of Europe’s most prestigious club competition, the UEFA champions’ league. This was a man who had previously shone like a million stars in his former club “Real Madrid” of Spain, but was soon relegated to the uttermost background, a player almost worse than a nobody. The situation played out the adage from the Christian writ which quotes “the stone that the builders rejected, finally becomes the Chief Cornerstone” albeit somewhere else in this particular scenario. The lesson to learn from this is ‘when you are going through the worst of times in life, look somewhere else , your glory might just be lying there waiting to be expressed’. Respite often comes from avenues we have counted out.
Another instance in the same “FC Monaco” team that season was that of a player called Edward Cisse who had come from a team that battled relegation the previous season without success, only to come play for club inching ever so close to winning Europe’s biggest football competition that season. This throws up another vital lesson that “for the fact that you are struggling at the bottom presently, it does not mean that the next minute you cannot be on your way shooting past the heavens”. Learn to fall if you must but with your face looking upwards ever ready for the rebound because it is in you to achieve it.
