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. Seeing 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
