Vincent Tan, the rich, mustachioed goober and sartorial terrorist who owns Cardiff City, is a curious man with curious ideas. Remember when he insisted on turning the Bluebirds red, calling them the Dragons, and trying to sign players who had eights in their birthdates? He may have been harangued into reversing those decisions, but the Malaysian billionaire’s peculiar brand of folk wisdom still plays a prominent role in his ownership style, as evidenced by a recent “pep talk” Tan gave to his players.
The problem: Cardiff aren’t scoring enough. His solution: well, just like when you aren’t “scoring” enough in your personal life, you’ve got to shoot your shot at any and all opportunities. From the Guardian:
“I gave them a pep talk and said they have got to start shooting,” he told Wales Online.
“Have you seen ugly men walking around with a very beautiful wife? Well that’s because they’ve asked 30, 40, 50 times before getting a yes.
“On the other hand, you’ll see a handsome man ask once, get a ‘no’ in response and that’s it. So the more you try, the more success you’ll have. We need a lot more goal attempts, we’ll score more and win games. Not only that, the fans will love it, too.”
This is some sordid combination of “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take” and “You go to bed with your hand 100 percent of the nights you don’t hit on babes at the bar.” If Cardiff manager Russell Slade isn’t getting the job done, Tan should really think about trying to bring in kindred spirit James Franklin.
Tan went on to solidify his belief in the almighty power of shooting over everything else:
“What’s the point of passing, passing, passing and hoping to get in the box that way. Unless you’re Lionel Messi looking for a tap in, it’s not going to work,” he said.
“I watch every Cardiff match and I told them ‘You guys have no confidence’. Peter Whittingham is capable of shooting and scoring score goals from 30 yards, so have a go, I said.
“Yet they get the ball and it seems to be like a hot potato. Pass it to somebody else straight away. You must see that, because I do.
“The law of averages says the more you shoot, the more you’ll score. If you shoot 30 times you’ll get three goals, 40 times will be four goals, 50 times and you’ll get five goals.
“Don’t respond by saying I know nothing about football. I’ve learned an awful lot, I see players regularly scoring in the Premier League from distance and we have to do that.”
Tan appears to mean well, so hopefully he’ll take our advice in hopes that next time he’ll be more informed about matters of both sport and love. Vincent, buddy, what you’re not getting is that the question of where shots are taken from is often more important than how many, and you aren’t going to get in good scoring positions without passing your way there. After that, if you’d have untucked that shirt of yours, lowered the waist of your pants to below your navel, and maybe cut out the goofy mannerisms, we’ll bet you could’ve shaved down on the number of times you had to ask a lady out before hearing a yes by at least half.
[Guardian]
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