Cut your pride!
Control your anger!!
Deflate your ego!!!
Croatia came to the 2018 World Cup with only two natural strikers, Mario Mandzukic, who scored the winner against England, and Nikola Kalinic. Kalinic was on the bench for Croatia’s first game against Nigeria. With five minutes left in the game, the coach instructed him to dress up and replace another player, but Kalinic angrily refused to play in protest of being left on the bench. He saw himself as a top player and wouldn’t come on for just five minutes. The coach turned to another player, Pjaca, for the substitution.
After the match, Kalinic refused to apologize despite appeals from other coaching staff. The coach then sacked him from the team and sent him home from Russia. Kalinic flew for holidays and even posted pictures of himself enjoying elsewhere, imagining that Croatia wouldn’t go anywhere in the tournament without him. But without him, the team managed to win their matches and got to the finals unbeaten! No one is indispensable!
Croatia achieved their greatest football achievement in history, reaching the World Cup final. The remaining 22 players are national heroes, and their names are forever inscribed in the hearts of generations. Kalinic is not part of the winning team all because of minutes of anger, pride, and a bloated ego. He may have regretted it now, but it is too late.
Learn to cut pride, learn to control anger and learn to deflate ego.
