SoBossLad’s Perfect Half

Thoughts on practice, performance and #LFC's Dominic Szoboslai.

I’m a musician - a cello player and creative to be more detailed about it. In my spare time I’m also a sports fan. I have a moderately hysterical penchant for LFC. I’m particularly inspired by the funny little nuanced differences that come to light when one compares music and football - both time based activities with a beginning, an end and events in between. The comparable aspects of performance and team mentality, I also find deeply fascinating.

What are the consequences of mistakes in each discipline? Do I want to witness a concert or match with a flawless performance - no mistakes at all? or would I prefer one with messy bits, but lots of panache and flamboyance? What is the goal? Obviously, goals and winning is kind of important in football, but what can make it even more entertaining than music, is the transparently ridiculous degree of difficulty that footballers have in controlling that round ball with its infinite number of trajectories. The mistakes are priceless.

So today, I’m talking about footballer, Dominic Soboszlai , (SoBossLad was an early attempt to pronounce his name when he first arrived on Merseyside and I think it’s just too good an epithet to let go), The ‘perfect half’ part of my title refers to the two sides of his footballing personna, and not so much either half of the match. The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - or we could say Mr Hideous on this occasion. Having said that, all It was all during the first half of LFC’s FA cup game vs Barnsley last week, that the poetry occurred; almost as if a composer had designed the timing of events - Dominic’s princely hero putting in a swashbuckling performance including a rapier like free kick goal that took your breath away. And then, just before half time, a moment of pure bathos where he produced a party trick worthy of Bozo the Clown, unfathomably deciding to perform a cunning lay back to his goal keeper, but instead presenting the opposition with an opportunity to score the equaliser. (But why did he do that?! Weeping emoji)

These events were predictably met with a cacophonous gnashing of teeth by LfC fans for days afterwards. Shock jocks trolled the hell out of the subject with earnest discussion about ‘arrogance’ and ‘disrespecting the opposition’ as was also the accusation from the Barnsley manager. But why he was sour about it, I don’t know. I mean for starters - Barnsley profited a goal from it, but even if he did feel disrespected, what could have been more satisfying than seeing the cocky LFC player humiliated in front of a packed Anfield? Surely theatrical hubris was a schadenfreude delicacy of the most exquisite kind?

This kind of moralising, trying to establish a status quo of honour between bros is so zeitgeist right now. The age of the pundit and opinionated chat show host oozing rectitude and cod balance with their little army of presentable, regular ‘personalities’ that might be just like you (or not as the case may be), but who will produce plumes of hot air in defence of your God given right not to be disrespected by some cocky tosser. Especially if they’ve paid too much attention to their (long) hair style.

The football, being the great leveller that it naturally is, had already dispensed its divine justice, but the media custodians have to add that extra comment to push the self congratulatory illusion that they have their nose to the ground and they can tell who are the good guys and the bad guys.

For me, this moral aspect - I’m not sure it’s even relevant and besides, we have no evidence or way of knowing whether Sobozlai was committing the crime of having megalomaniac thoughts when he made his dodgy decision. It’s true that a defender should be more risk averse because of the demonstrable danger of conceding goals and ideally he could have switched his brain into that more appropriate mode of conservatism.

But! - and here is the nub of my argument - I contend that he was in the midst of a transcendental moment. He was having a glorious match, where his energy was boundless, his vision was panoramic and laser sharp, his touch was inspired. He had reached that plateau where only the best footballers hang out and their confidence has become so embedded that it’s not even an adequate word to describe what they do. Probably the best way to describe it is that they’ve left worry behind. Thinking about mistakes is simply not in the vocabulary.

The fact that the tiniest chink of doubt might have pierced his nirvana and caused a minute alteration to his intended deft, angled touch back to the goal keeper is a reason for us to feel awe, not disappointment. It was evidence that we were seeing someone on a higher, more joyous plane. Someone genuinely without worry who was prepared to do special things. Prepared to walk the high wire - the precipitous fall was the proof he was up there. I will gladly sacrifice a goal in the name of that!

This process of transcending isn’t some exclusive, mysterious power out there in the ether that deigns to infuse only the most gifted. The chosen ones like Messi and Suarez. It’s a point that can be reached by

And here is where we get into the music. So speaking of falling flat on your face, or in this case, landing smack on your arse, I started musing about the Ice skating I’d just been watching on TV - the pairs came out to do their warm ups for an allotted amount of time…but still, when the high pressured moment came to do the triple ‘sulco’ you can guess what happened. It makes compelling viewing. At the time I had this thought, I was practising my cello - .namely gliding up and down a scale of E flat, trying to iron out those tiny imperfections of tuning and clunky position changes for the left hand. The intention was that this exercise would enable me to play a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach without fear of being distracted by mistakes. What’s the jeopardy for a cello player? I’m not going to come crashing down on my arse if I misplace my finger by 2 millimetres,but even if my audience doesn’t hear it, I will notice and I won’t be thinking about the music and music alone. What I’m trying to do with the practice is to automate the maneuvre so that when it comes to performing a real piece of music, I won’t be thinking about these aspects of technique - I’ll be in the musical moment - articulating the beauty and directional intent of a musical phrase with every shred of nuance that exists along its unique path. Consciousness in music is not being aware of everything around you - it’s more like blocking out everything around you, including your thoughts.

There are so many hours and minutes worth of painstaking practice that go into acquiring this ability to switch to auto-pilot and all the concert level performers put those hours in. The final jigsaw piece is allowing yourself to lose your fear. Of course, both in music and football, many people only achieve it episodically - in inspired moments - but I think it’s heartening to witness people trying to get there and to recognise that such things as music and football and indeed music IN football exist. That half of football was positively operatic!