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Let’s talk about the Soccer
World Cup and the drama we’ve
had thus far and see if soccer
tactics and boxing tactics have
any similarities.
Unfortunately, with the
exception of Senegal, who have
an outside chance of making the
knockout stages, all the rest of
the countries from my continent
Africa are on their way home.
In an exciting match filled with
drama, TV replays, penalties,
potential penalties, diving and
everything else one could think
of, Nigeria were three minutes
away from heading to the
knockout stages – only to be
sucker punched by a later winner
from Marcus Rojo of Argentina
resulting in millions of broken
Nigerian hearts.
Should Nigeria have tried to
defend their lead as they did or
should they have tried to score
a third goal, thus killing off
the game and securing victory?
Defend or attack was the
post-result debate.
In 2011, Francois ‘The White
Buffalo’ Botha met Michael Grant
for the WBF world heavyweight
title in Johannesburg, South
Africa in a Damian
Michael-promoted show.
Botha, not well known for
dedicated training, this time
put in a one hundred percent
performance to outclass the
bigger and stronger Michael
Grant, catching him with right
hands the entire night, boxing
with great skill and
intelligence.
Going into the final round,
Botha was
way ahead on points with
Grant struggling to avoid being
knocked out.
Seing out the
last round was all Botha needed
to do to retain his world
heavyweight crown.
The debate once again with
similarity to the Nigeria vs
Argentina match was whether to
attack and try to stop Grant, or
whether to hold, survive, even
make it ugly, but to see out the
fight and retain the WBF’s
heavyweight crown.
Opposite to the approach of
Nigeria, Botha went on the
attack and got caught with a
massive right hand with 30
seconds to go in the fight, and
being knocked out cold. The
beauty about both soccer and
boxing is that there are many
diverse tactics to use, and to
use correctly.
One might work for one person
but not for another, and
similarly for one soccer team
and not the other.
Defend or attack - you decide!
Until next time, keep boxing.
Howard Goldberg
PRESIDENT: World Boxing
Federation
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