Phrases I Hate

"We deserved better."

I may have ranted about this in the past but it still irritates me.

It's a little along the lines of blaming a predecessor for a current situation. Forsample, four years on, President Obama is still attacking a previous administration. At the State of the Union no less!

At some point, in general in any walk of life, one stops accepting such a premise and directs their attention to the person setting up the strawman in order to protect themselves.

Yes, it does happen where a CEO or General Manager takes over a corporation or team in distress and turmoil. They may or may not come in with a plan to fix it. If they fail to do so, fans won't accept the "blame the previous guy" line. You took over, now you fix it.

And so it is with Obama. Nobody forced him to run for Pres. He knew full well the challenges that were before him. Quit whining.

I digress.

"We deserve better" or "we deserved a better fate" is prominent in sports; especially soccer.

Think Seattle Seahawks, Buffalo Sabres, Sacramento Kings (and others) fans feel ripped off?

Try soccer. Every second game is one where a coach or player concludes they felt a better result. No kidding. Everyone feels they deserve better.

You don't deserve squat. You earn victory. You earn it by executing and being more ruthless than your opponent. I know, we're trying to erase the latter part of the equation since it's not "right." Personally, it'll only make us weaker for when the robot aliens come and invade.

I always take stats like "ball possession" and "shots on goal" with a grain of salt. Such metrics are clues as to how your game plan is evolving. They're comforting in losses, hence "we deserved better" and used as examples of "superiour" qualities in victory.

The bottom line is the one who crosses the goal line, scores the most goals and sinks the most field goals WINS. You don't win points for form.