“VINNIE, NO SHOOT, NO SHOOT VINNIE”

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It was Monday, May 6th, 2019, 8:00p.m B.S.T. Manchester City Football Club popularly called Man City were playing at home to Leicester City Football Club also known as Leicester in the English Premier League. This game would have been just another entertaining premier league match but for a certain fact. It was the Man City’s 37th game out of 38 games of the season. At the kickoff of that match, Liverpool Football Club popularly called Liverpool were leading the competition with 94 points from 37 games while Man City had 92 points from 36 games.

The permutation was simple and straightforward, if Man City failed to win that night, then they would trail Liverpool with 2 points if they lost or 1 point if they drew going into the final game of the season the following Sunday. If this happened, it invariably meant that if Liverpool won their Sunday game against Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C, then Man City would lose the title crown to Liverpool irrespective of their own result against Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. on Sunday. In simple English, Man City must win that night to stand a good chance of winning the league title that season.

At 69th minute, the game was goalless, and with just only 21 minutes left to play for, nerves were at breaking point both at Etihad Stadium, the home ground of Man City where the match was being played and all over the world wherever fans were watching. Leicester were resolute defensively and posed a real threat at the opposition’s box. By all indication, the game would either end in Leicester’s favour or it would end in a goalless draw either of which would be catastrophic for Man City. Then something happened that changed the narrative.

At 70th minute, Vincent Kompany, the captain of Man City team who happened to be a defender collected a pass 30 yards away from Leicester’s box. Normally, being a defender, what was expected of him at such a long distance from goal was to pass the ball forward to his forward players. While defenders do score goals once in a while, it is not a very common occurrence and a defender shooting from 30 yards in an open play is definitely not in the playbook of any team. When you consider that this same player had never prior to that time scored from outside the box for Man City and has not even scored a single goal that season, you would have definitely expected him to not shoot the ball. But was he thinking like that? No sir, he wasn’t! As he lined the ball to shoot, his coach Pep Guardiola who was close to him on the touchline shouted, “Vinnie, don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” His teammate, Sergio Aguero who was the striker of the team also echoed the coach’s concern by shouting, “Vinnie, no shoot, no shoot Vinnie!” But Vinnie shot his shot! He released a thunderbolt of a shot from 30 yards out which flew past Peter Schmeichel, the Leicester’s goalkeeper like a rocket and hit the back of the net with a thunderous clap! It was a goal! Etihad was thrown into a franzy, the whole world of English football was thrown into a frenzy. All over the world while Liverpool fans bit their nails in anger, Man City fans broke into joyous songs and dance. Just when people were thinking it was over, then came a wonderful goal from an unexpected player at an unexpected distance in an unexpected manner. The game ended with only that goal that night and took Man City to 95 points, just a point above Liverpool at 94 with a round of matches to go.
The following Sunday Liverpool beat Wolves 2-0 to reach 97 points for the season while Man City defeated Brighton that same day 1-4 to reach a total points of 98 and won the league trophy with just a point over Liverpool. If Kompany had not shot that shot and scored, they would have gotten a total of 96 points and lost the title to Liverpool with just a point.

After the match, when he was being interviewed, Kompany said, “I could hear people saying ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ But I have not come this far in my career to have young players tell me when to shoot. For 15 years, I’ve told people I would I’ll score one like that.” It was his only goal of the season and his last goal for Man City before he left the club at the end of that season.

How can you relate this football story of a glorious moment to your life? Many of us are today shackled by the chains of what people expect from us and what people don’t expect from us. To us, people’s opinions is the bylaws by which our lives are lived. I have heard someone said “As a graduate, I am not expected to do that kind of job, people will talk about me.” So what? Whether you did it or not, people would still talk about you, so why not just shoot your shot and do something that you know would benefit your life in the long run? On many occasions, we are presented with golden opportunities to do something extra ordinary, but because we listen to people’s opinions and judge ourselves with those opinions, we simply pass the ball away and miss the opportunities. While it is good to listen to people’s opinions and advice, they should by no means impede us from achieving our goals in life.
Sometimes, all we need to excel is to follow our instinct and shoot our shot even when conditions don’t look favorable to do so and people are not thinking it is a good idea. In the end, it is your shot, so why not just shoot it and see if it goes in or not?

2020 despite its many challenges and pandemic is still very young. We can all still do something wonderful this year that will change the fortune of our lives if we could just line up the ball and close our ears to critics and negative advisors and just shoot the shot. Many times, all we need to do to make wonderful things happen in wonderful situations at a wonderful place with unexpected wonderful results is just to make a wonderful effort against the run of play of life.
It is my prayer that when this year comes to an end and we eventually sign in to 2021, we would all be able to look back and say, “2020 was a goal!”

Success is yours in life.