Dear SPU,

There are no secrets to success. Success is the result of preparation,hardwork and learning from failures. Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by those DOING it . You guys did well in the game but can definitely can do much better,we just need to overcome our fear against stronger opponents and it is not difficult. Let's do this together as a team and also grow as a team. The team is only as strong as the weakest player. Bring it SP. BRING IT!

Never Enough!
Cheers,
jON

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Rooney proof that greatness requires toil
Rohit Brijnath, Sporting Life
10 November 2009
Straits Times
EFFORT in sport is measured in numbers that are demanded by coaches, promised by captains and exaggerated by athletes. French footballer Emmanuel Petit once said he'd give 150 per cent, Pakistani cricketer Younis Khan upped it to 200 per cent, and American golfer Jerry Kelly raised it to a record 1,000 per cent.
Wayne Rooney has a firmer grip on reality and mathematics. He simply gives everything. Which is in fact 100 per cent. All the time. You watch him, you get tired. You play against him, you need a post-game drip.
After Sunday's match, he grumbled Manchester United were playing 12 men; that's only fair because so were Chelsea. Rooney was in so many places that there must have been two of him. You couldn't take your eyes off him only because he was always in front of your eyes.
Clubs love this, they will see in Rooney's desperate sprints, his unabashed tackles, an allegiance to their Red Devil cause. But it's more than club, Rooney's commitment is to something else, something more pure, to football itself, to the idea that any greatness must come from labour.
Proof of this is everywhere, as last week demonstrated. In the boxing ring, David Haye injured his hand in round two while hitting rock-solid favourite Nikolai Valuev, but persevered and won.
In cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, deep into his marathon 175, kept pushing his bruised 36-year-old body to run hard. In response, Australia's fielders, on unyielding sub-continental grounds, threw their bodies behind every ball. Asked about it, captain Ricky Ponting used a simple word. Pride. To give less would be to demean team and game.
Rooney would have applauded. On his website, a question reads: 'Would you say you've been lucky - or has it been mostly natural ability and hard work?' His reply was telling: 'I would put hard work first, then natural ability - and then luck.'
There is a need in sport for players like Rooney. We need him because he fascinates us on a different level. His football is without embroidery, his game does not lean towards delicacy, he is not Federer, Ronaldo, Phil, he arrives instead from the same family tree as Rafael Nadal.
No one will ever mistake him for a Baryshnikov in boots, yet his game glistens, too, with intensity, with rawness. Sunday's game was hard, like patrons of a working man's bar spilling out into the parking lot for a game, and he fit right in.
When we look at Federer, we do not see sweat. Of course he labours, but it is obscured by beauty, he makes sport look too easy, he is almost too skilful at times. Rooney engages us on a more visceral level, his beauty is his desire, he is a necessary reminder to every watching kid that any accomplishment's first step is effort. You don't run, you can't win.
Managers need Rooney because they like heart and behind his $2 haircut and three-second temper, he has this ache to win. His commitment is real, it is not merely an overstated virtue in the press room by players who insist they will give their best (if the money is right).
Pep Guardiola reportedly extolled his work ethic to Barcelona players. Alex Ferguson said this year: 'Wayne is blessed with certain ingredients that only certain great players have. He has that hunger and determination. They want to win every match and every training session.'
Rooney may have a thug's face (and behaviour sometimes), but he owns the uninhibitedness of a kid wearing his first boots. On the field he succeeds because he chases. Everything. Balls, defenders, shadows, dreams, referees.
He was there on the edge of Chelsea's box on Sunday and by the time the producer changed to another camera he was defending at United's corner flag.
Vince Lombardi, the gridiron guru, would have loved Rooney's pursuit of the footballing life, for he once said: 'Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.'
Finally, football needs Rooney because every time he pushes towards his physical limit, every time he refuses to concede a ball is out of reach, he is influencing the game.
He is demanding a talented response from his rivals. He is challenging his own team, or as Jonny Evans said in September: 'He is a nightmare when you are in his team in training as he is always complaining and always wants to win.' He is simply making football better.
Which leaves one last thing. Real Madrid, it is said, apparently want to buy Rooney. For £85 million (S$197 million).
So is he worth it?
All 100 per cent of it.