Leading From The Front

France Lloris directs his defence as Croatia prepare to take the free kick in the World Cup Final from which they will ultimately make it France 1-1 Croatia

 At 2018 World Cup Final vs Croatia

Shortly after the half-time whistle during Spurs's home game with Everton, skipper Hugo Lloris was not impressed with the way Son Heung-Min was tracking the run of Toffee's striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin. This led to a bust up between the duo and they had to be separated by the rest of the on-field players.

However, the short bust up seemed to have worked as Spurs looked a completely different team in the second half and secured a 1-0 victory to boost their hopes of Europa League football next season.

During the post-match interview Mourinho was pleased with his teams performance, where he also described the Son-Lloris bust up as 'Beautiful'. He also mentioned about the fact that sometimes being honest with yourself as a team allows you to reflect on your performances and improve yourself mentally

"If you want to blame somebody for that, it's me. I was critical of my boys because they are not in my opinion critical enough with themselves".  

The second half showed a completely different kind of performance as Spurs were able to put in a solid defensive display to keep their 1-0 lead. Seeing incidents like these shows just how important team spirit is and how much passion the players still have for the game regardless of their overall position in the League. Former Spurs midfielder and Sky Sports pundit backed this up at half-time.

That might be a consequence of what happened in the Sheffield United game when he didn’t make a challenge. ‘He runs up to him, he pushes Le Celso into him almost… I’ve been involved with this before. I’ve seen it with Steve McManaman and Bruce Grobbelaar and, in a way, at least it shows that they care because against Sheffield United they didn’t. There wasn’t enough of that.’

This really emphasises the point that yes the manger is their to try and control the team, but it's then up to the players to respond and help each other out by working and communicating effectively with each other, especially on the pitch.

If you look at newly crowned champions Liverpool, a part of their success has come from their passion and desire to win football matches. Yes, you could say that the main reason is to do with teamwork and team spirit. Manager Jurgen Klopp and captain Jordan Henderson for me have been the main stalwarts of Liverpool's success in these past three years. Yes, you could say that it has been Liverpool's front three and two full backs, who have been behind the majority of their success,  but it's even more important for a team to have leaders like Klopp and Henderson, who can set an example for everyone of how team spirit goes a long way to  achieving success, which is one of the reasons as to why they won the Champions League, FIFA Club World Cup and now their first Premier League title. 

When a team is down it's really important for a leader or even a group of leaders to rejuvenate the team and say something like "come on guys this is not good enough, we need more!', phrases like this can really turn an average or below par performance into a top-class one, especially when their is no home crowd to try and jeer the players on.



Feature Image: Hugo  Lloris leading France World Cup Final via Flickr.com