The great basketball coach Phil Jackson is the most successful in NBA history having won 11 championships. Nevertheless, in his famous book Eleven Rings, he is still moved to claim that the year after winning a championship is always the hardest.
“That’s when everybody’s ego rears its head and the uncanny chemistry the team felt just a few months earlier suddenly dissolves into thin air,” argues Jackson. He quotes Rick Fox, three-time NBA champion turned actor, who compared it to winning an Oscar.
“It defines who you are,” he says. “For the rest of your life you mean something.” That kind of self-worth can be a valuable commodity and a useful tool in unlocking even greater potential in an individual. “But it also changes your expectations,” adds Jackson.
He goes on to quote Fox further: “You win a championship and you all go away and get patted on the back for several months. Then you return for the new season and you’re saying, ‘This is what I want to happen for me.'” That can be a problem in any team sport.
Earlier this year, Arsenal became Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years. It was an accomplishment that Mikel Arteta and all at the club had ached for so much that the tension could sometimes be felt on the pitch let alone in the stands.
The catharsis was real but the challenge for Arteta was to ensure that it did not feel like an ending for his Arsenal team. For a number of reasons, the signs already are that this Gunners side are not going to succumb to the insidious issues Jackson warned about.
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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta plays down his side’s hectic away schedule
Targets help. And Arsenal’s history provides easy motivational tools. First of all, this great football club, for all its success, did not retain the title under Bertie Mee, George Graham or Arsene Wenger. Indeed, no Arsenal manager has ever achieved the feat.
Their 1930s threepeat came under three different managers with Herbert Chapman’s passing leading to Joe Shaw serving as caretaker for the second title win before George Allison replaced him for the third. For Arteta, in particular, it would be some honour.
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For the team as a whole, the Champions League final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain was anything but welcome. But one wonders whether that too has helped to avoid any sense of finality to their mission. The mood in Budapest so quickly shifted to one of defiance.
“We are going to use this moment to fuel us for the upcoming seasons – speaking to the players and the manager, there is no reason why we are stopping here,” said Declan Rice. “Next year, we are going to go even stronger and we are going to be ready again.”
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Arsenal’s match against Hull in the Premier League
Ten games into the Premier League season and Arsenal are five points clear at the top of the table and odds-on to retain the title. In the Champions League standings, they are third and unbeaten. They boast the best defensive record in both competitions.
In other words, there is no hint of lost purpose. Arteta’s Asenal remain fully focused. And given his awareness of the importance of psychology, one can be that their manager has been the architect of all the mood music around the club. For him, the job is not done.
The branding around the stadium declaring Arsenal champions came down quickly and it was surely no coincidence that the two most expensive signings of the summer – Bruno Guimaraes and Ezri Konsa – were experiences players yet to win the biggest prizes.
Even the signing of Arteta’s contract extension was utilised as an opportunity to reinforce the message. “What is so exciting is that this is only the beginning of what we can achieve together,” he said after signing that new four-year deal with the club in October.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from the Premier League match between Liverpool and Arsenal
That framing drew a reaction from Jose Mourinho. “I saw something interesting that would not happen at Real Madrid. Mikel Arteta renewed his contract and said something like, ‘We are still starting, this is just the beginning.’ And he has been there for years.”
Mourinho’s comments are understandable given that next month marks the seventh anniversary of Arteta’s reign. He is already the longest-serving manager in English football, having been in the job three years longer than any other Premier League boss.
But perhaps Arteta just understands the importance of shaping the narrative – and the dangers that come when the protagonists believe that the mountain has been climbed. His Arsenal are still striving for more. And as long as they are, more can be achieved.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: skynews.com
