All Things Sports

Hi guys, welcome back to All Things Sports, I hope everyone enjoyed their New Years holiday. Before I start off with today’s topic, I would like to take a minute to talk about Damar Hamlin and his injury. A few days after I wrote about player safety in the NFL, I witnessed the most scary event on a sports field since Christian Eriksen’s collapse at Euro 2020. I really don’t think anyone was at fault for the injury, but we should let it serve as a reminder that there is always an element of risk of things like this happening in sports. Players always take the field acknowledging this risk and unfortunately something happened that doesn’t happen very often. That being said, the NFL handled it largely well outside of almost wanting to continue on Monday night, but otherwise they handled the situation well and I am extremely happy to hear that Damar Hamlin is doing much better. That being said, it’s time to get on to this week’s topic: the Cinderella Story of 2022. Now there were a ton of candidates for this award from the Phillies that made the World Series in baseball  to St. Peter’s made the Elite 8 in March Madness to the Cincinnati Bengals making the Super Bowl. However, it should be blatantly obvious that one team rose above them all: the Moroccan national team at the 2022 Fifa World Cup. For those of you who may live under a rock and not followed the World Cup, Morocco managed to win their group and advance to the semifinals, beating Belgium, Spain and even knocking Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal. They did this despite entering the tournament being ranked as the 22nd best team in the world. That math would have had them out in the Group Stage. However, strange things happen in sports and, on the world’s biggest stage, they showed up and delivered the miracle of the year. But why did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Well why they may not be the most talented squad like England or France, that doesn’t mean they were completely devoid of it. Achraf Hakimi, one of their star players in the tournament, is considered one of the best and quickest right backs in the world whilst Hakim Ziyech, another star performer, has a wand of left foot and has been a part of some stellar squads like the Ajax squad in 2018-19 that stunned Europe and made the Champions League semi finals(it’s a habit for him). That combined with Sofyan Amrabat doing his best prime N’Golo Kante impression and goalkeeper Yassine Bounou becoming a brick wall help explain the miracle run. But that doesn’t explain all of it. They beat more talented teams. Now this leads us to the true reason they made the semifinals: coaching and cohesion. Their manager, Walid Regragui was heralded as one of the coaches of the tournament managing a squad that often appeared more well coached than their more talented opponents. This feature will always apply to sports: the talent can be there but the coach needs to harness it. Without a good coach, the talent is worthless. Another thing is cohesion. This is a problem seen in team sports. There are teams such as PSG and Man City that will fail because the talent doesn’t know how to play together. If there is no cohesion in team sports, the team will always fail to overcome challenges. Throughout the tournament, this Moroccan team was able to play as a cohesive unit that understood exactly what they needed to do at every point in time. They weren’t a group of individuals, but a single entity. They played as one and the chemistry they had helped propel them to the semifinals over teams such as Spain and Portugal. The effect of cohesion is not unknown, however. Take the Croatian national team. They have more talent than Morocco but still less than other nations yet they have placed 2nd and 3rd in the last two World Cups. Why? Because that team has chemistry and that chemistry has helped them navigate big tournaments and perform when it matters most. So while the Moroccan run may have been a miracle, it is not unexplainable. It’s something that represents everything people in team sports should strive for. They are the gold standard for a team on how to function and that made them the greatest Cinderella of 2022.