Legendary mentors don’t forget the dishonesty by key critics for some reasons they had to face during a big soccer event. Yes, we are taking about England and its former boss Roy Hodgson who has now openly hit out at “dishonest” criticism of his management at Euro 2016 performance last summer that was possibly in his knowledge right from the day.
England got out of the tournament shocking 2-1 loss to minnows Iceland at the round-of-16 stage in France that closed all the doors for his side and he took the responsibility and left the job.
Talking about the issue in great length, he said in his recent interview, “I was totally uninterested in those type of comments, which I regard as purely irrelevant and dishonest. No one whose opinion I respect would have said anything like that, otherwise I would have heard about it.
“I certainly didn’t feel suicidal and I certainly didn’t feel self-doubt either because I think probably the four years, especially the last two years after the World Cup, fashioning a team from a very young group of players, many of whom weren’t even in their club side, and playing the sort of football we were capable of playing — we were playing very, very well. I am very, very proud of that achievement.
“I think it is probably the best work, in many ways, that I did or have done so far. But of course, any work you do as a sporting person, a football coach or any coach, if it is good work you’ve got to have something — a championship — to show for it. We didn’t get that, quite the reverse. But I believe people who work within the game and inside sport realise what I did and certainly I got all sorts of messages from all sorts of important friends and acquaintances. So there was never any doubt I would collapse in any way with self-doubt.
“If anything, I think the experience makes you stronger. In football however well you think you are doing, however well your life is going, there is always a mugger there lurking in the shadows, to bash you over the head when you least expect it.”
Roy Hodgson: katatonia82 / Shutterstock.com