Sunderland Keane On Survival and How!

The football that Sunderland played was nowhere near impressive; it was pretty much ordinary, at times scrappy and most of the time appeared like an unconditional raw response to an organized attacking stimulus. On the basis of play, Spurs were the better side by a good distance and shoved Sunderland deep into their own half despite possessing lower percentage of possession. With their higher class and depth, Spurs were always the favourites for this, the first English Premier League game of the season, but in football you rarely have the actions following what's encrypted in the scripts. In this instance, the footballing God Himself came out of the mists to inspire Sunderland and He came in the shape of an angel, someone named Roy Keane.

The football that Sunderland exhibited against Tottenham Hotspur at the Stadium of Light on Saturday was typical of the side that knows that all it can aspire to accomplish in the season is stave off relegation from top flight football. Sunderland don't have a single superstar footballer in their squad---not that they are supposed to--- and that implies that they have to rely on team performance to piss humiliation on all those football pundits who are tipping them to play in the Championship next season. And against Spurs, the Black Cats did just that. It was the team spirit that guided Sunderland to an astonishing victory over Spurs who are indisputably the only side of the rest of the Premiership teams who are remotely capable of breaking into the "Big Four". Sunderland played like a team, the players---most of them meagerly gifted---passed the ball around and extended the pitch trying to carve out an avenue to get at the Spurs defence and did succeed on the odd occasion. But where does this team spirit stem from? Who was the true inspiration behind this victory? Who conceived the plan that put the first hole in Martin Jol's dream to steer his side to the UEFA Champions League next season?

You enjoy a song and you praise the singer(s). You listen to a symphony on the radio and you marvel at the artists' gifts. You watch a movie and idolize the actors and actresses. You watch a game of football and you are wonderstruck at the players' skills. But in all these instances, you miss out one vital force that is not apparent but is very much present, lurking just beneath the surface and always weaving its magic. It is the force of the songwriter that actually hatches the song, it is the force of the conductor that impassionate the players, it is the force of the director that leads the movie to success and it is the force of the manager that instigates the footballers to present their best on the football pitch. On Saturday, the force of inspiration shone from Roy Keane and enlightened all those in red-and-white strips, the seedling bursts through the soil and an inspirational victory was scripted. This was a swansong of the Keane rage that has attained legendary status, a rage that has been the motivating factor in Manchester United's unprecedented success in the Premiership era.