Choosing a Path
Those of you close enough to me have surely picked up on a resurged love for soccer and a new love for the English Premier League. My friend, Nathan, helped me dig deeper and Evan, Marcus, and Bill have helped to carry it along. When I was picking a team to follow the league through, Aston Villa was suggested to me. I stuck with it and as best I can tell, am in love. The only thing I take issue with is that they’re not a top level club.
Case in point: Villa’s best player, Ashley Young, left for Manchester United, the current league champions, this past month. He wanted to play for a winning side and knew that the Champions League was available for him there.
This happens in the US as well. In MLB, Alex Rodriguez was a good baseball player on his own, but he wanted to win titles and needed then help of others, so he signed with the Yankees (the most historic baseball franchise).
So what’s the deal? It doesn’t make sense to me. I personally (and selfishly) would’ve loved for Mr. Young to stay with AVFC. He left for a team that he might not even start on and to be just one of many historic greats. If he’d stayed, and won at Aston Villa, he would be revered as one of the greats there. Even if he didn’t win as much, the expectations could be altered by his years of performance. I’m sure they’ll be loved and remembered where they are at, but what if they’d taken the risk to do their own thing? What if they’d recruited good players to join them where they were at?
I think about this for myself too. Obviously, I don’t have to make the choice of what franchise I sign with, but I do have to decide how many footsteps I’ll follow in out. Will I follow out of fear and knowing it’s a safe path? Or will I follow because I know it’s the best way to go? Will I go it alone or on a new path to create my own legacy, for my own glory? Or will I follow a new path to bring glory to God?
