A genuine emotional outburst can win more credibility than consistent success
Evidence
Giovanni Trapattoni was not a fan favorite after FC Bayern Munich hired him as coach for the second time in just a few years. The club’s supporters were less than enthusiastic about the reserved, aristocratic-looking Italian, who usually spoke publicly through interpreters. That changed on March 10, 1998, with a single press conference after an embarrassing defeat against FC Schalke 04. Trapattoni’s angry speech in clumsy German made him arguably the most popular soccer coach in Germany; his phrases “weak as bottle empty” and “I have done!” found their way into popular culture as idioms. What outstanding successes as coach of several clubs had failed to achieve, a moment of honest emotion did. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 245
Categorization
- CANDY: A fun, tweetable anecdote: one emotional press-conference rant made a foreign coach Germany’s most beloved football figure.