Celtic’s Superstar from Portugal and the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

I’m not sure many of us would have thought of our superstar from Portugal having much in common with the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, but when you hear Jota’s thoughts after last week’s Scottish League Cup win over theRangers, it is clear there is a connection to be made.

Jota, as reported in The Scotsman has been outlining his personal thoughts on creating the kind of positive mindset that will allow him to develop as a player and a person. And Stoicism, a school of ancient Greek philosophy which later became popular in ancient Rome, and influenced ‘The Meditations’, a private diary of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, seems also to have influenced our deep thinking winger too.

“I’m someone who tries not to look too far into the future and tries to understand just what the present brings to me and enjoy it. Because tomorrow isn’t granted for anyone, so I just enjoy myself and want to be happy.

“I think there is no fun in remaining the same person or the same footballer. We need to evolve, we need to be better. You guys, I think you will want to be better every day and I am no different, I want to be better every day as well. I know I will make a lot of errors, but those are the things that are probably going to make me go to another level, so that is my mindset,” Jota said.

“We want to make a mark in the world and a mark in Celtic. We know the way we have to go, and for that to happen, we have to be humble and we need to work a lot every day because everything can change from one minute to another. We just have to be ready for that.

“I think with the amount of games we play each year, if we didn’t learn from our mistakes then something was definitely wrong, because we are not perfect. There is no team that is perfect in the world. We just need to understand in which phase of the games we are not that good, or where we need to improve, and then we just look at that and we improve. That is what we have been doing.

“We keep on making mistakes, but they are healthy mistakes, you know? Of course, there are mistakes we cannot commit, but the small details will then help us to be better in different competitions.

“I mean, we want to attack all the time and to recover the ball in high areas of the pitch, but sometimes we need to acknowledge that other teams have quality as well, and we need to adapt, football is about adapting to different circumstances, and we’re no different in that. We showed that we can do other sides of the game as well.”

Eleanor Roosevelt is attributed with the famous phrase; The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why we call it ‘The Present’, and Jota certainly seems to practice that very school of thought.

It is clear self-development on and off the field is something Jota takes very seriously and that can only be to Celtic’s benefit – in the present at least, we’ll not worry about the future whist were all in a present state of mind!

Ange Postecoglou has brought together a group of young players at Celtic who not only have the necessary attributes to make Celtic an entertaining and successful side, it appears he has also created a group who focus on the here and now and think deeply about how to improve by focusing on the present, not dwelling on the past, and believing in doing so the future can be hugely influenced.

Jota is presenting a humble attitude that should be commended, rather than scorned. Though no doubt in the macho world of football it may be in some quarters.

And if reading the teachings of Greek philosophers and Roman emperors leads to Jota maximising his potential as he seems bent on doing, then more power to his elbow. As a recent convert to Stoicism myself I can highly recommend joining Jota’s required reading group.

Niall J

Watch Jota give his thoughts on our very first trophy of the season below…