GOM World Cup Diary #31 – Shock! Horror! Spain Concede A Goal!

Whatever Happened To Perfection?

There was only one real shock in last night’s quarter-final.

Spain conceded a goal.

I almost had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fool’s Day.

For 649 minutes – that’s more than seven full football matches – nobody had managed to beat Unai Simón. In doing so, Spain had broken the previous World Cup record of 517 minutes without conceding a goal.

Then Belgium scored.

The remarkable thing wasn’t that Spain conceded.

The remarkable thing was how quickly that became the talking point.

Spain still won 2-1.

Spain still reached the semi-finals.

Spain are still one of the favourites to lift the trophy.

Yet for a little while, all anyone wanted to talk about was the clean sheet that had finally disappeared.

It made me wonder why we’re all so obsessed with perfection.

One spelling mistake in an email and we forget the other 999 words were perfectly written.

One bad review after years of happy customers suddenly feels more important than the hundreds of glowing ones.

One missed putt.

One burnt sausage.

One forgotten anniversary… although perhaps that’s not the best example if my wife happens to read this.

Life has a funny habit of encouraging us to notice the tiny imperfections while overlooking everything that’s gone right.

Football isn’t much different.

The Football Gods probably looked down after 649 minutes and said, “That’ll do. Nobody likes showing off.”

Goal.

Record over.

On we go.

The funny thing is, I doubt Spain’s players were particularly upset.

Records are nice.

Semi-finals are better.

Perhaps that’s the lesson.

Perfection is something we admire, but progress is usually what really matters.

Nobody remembers how many clean sheets you kept if you don’t win the tournament.

Just as nobody remembers how tidy the garage was if you never actually finish the rest of the house.

Success isn’t about never making mistakes.

It’s about making fewer than the other fellow and carrying on regardless.

Spain did exactly that.

The clean sheet disappeared.

The semi-final place didn’t.

I’d call that a rather good exchange.

Anyway, what do I know?

I’m just a grumpy old man.

Stick your thoughts in the comments — VAR won’t overturn them.