This is Al Pacino’s speech from Any Given Sunday, if you’ve not seen it performed by him, you’re missing out. It’s a beautiful moment of vulnerability from a man in cinema, the honesty is what makes it compelling.
“I don’t know what to say, really. 3 minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today, and either, we heal as a team, or we’re gonna crumble.
Inch by inch, play by play. Until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time.
Now, I can’t do it for you. I’m too old. I look around I see these young faces and I think, I mean, I’ve made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make. I’ve pissed away all my money. I chased off anyone who’s ever loved me. And lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.
You know, when you get old in life, things get taken from you. I mean, that’s a part of life. But you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life’s this game of inches. So is football. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small.
I mean, one half a step too late or too early, and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing, between living and dying!
I’ll tell you this, in any fight it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know, if I’m gonna have any life any more it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that’s what living is… The six inches in front of your face.
Now, I can’t make you do it. You’ve got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. I think you’re going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. You’re gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it your gonna do the same for him.
That’s a team, gentlemen. And either, we heal, now, as a team or we die as individuals.”
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