Yoann Gourcuff, I’ve not overly familiar with your career and I’m overly familiar with any public comments you’ve made in the past, but I’d like to give you some free advice if I may.
You kind of need to stop talking. You know, I thought I just went through this with Franz Beckenbauer the other day. You DON’T under ANY circumstances go around telling people about teams you fear or teams you don’t want to play–it’s bad for business.
Think about it this way. This is my ultimate “hardcore athlete” story.
Every watched the Summer Olympics? Did you watch Kerry Walsh and Misty May win the gold medal in 2008. If you watch their entire match with the Chinese pair you can see the moment when Kerry and Misty smelled the blood in the water.
They saw it on the faces of their opponents and what happened after that? They put the Chinese away in short order. You see what I mean? The Chinese decided to let Walsh/May know that they thought it was over and it became so.
Well, if you’re Bordeaux and the only team you don’t want to see is Barca then you need to keep that to yourself. If you DO end up playing Barca later in the tournament don’t you think they’re going to remember that you’re totally petrified of them?
If I were a Barca player I’d post the comments all over the locker room, in the plane, on the team bus, in everyone’s hotel room and say, “We WANT these guys now–even if they don’t want us!”
This is a classic case of players trying to deal with the media and failing. A comment like:
“Barca is a great team and they would play us tough” should have been enough. Opening up to the media too much can only lead to further problems.
