Stephen Maguire: The Hidden Talent

Maguire, Lisbon Open 2014 Champion

Well, just a few weeks back Stephen Maguire won the European Tour 5 - the first ever professional tournament in Portugal -, and he's now up to 3rd in the European Tour Order of Merit, when five out of six tournaments has been played.
In the World Ranking, he is 12th which is maybe a bit low for him, but still a nice place to be in the Top 16.
2014 saw the Scot Semi-Finalist at The Masters, Quarter-Finalist in the Wuxi Classic, Winner of the Six Reds World Championship (which is a lot bigger than many Ranking Events out there), Semi-Finalist in the European Tour 4 and the big UK Championship, then Winner of the European Tour 5.

After win the Six Reds World Championship, Maguire failed to reach to to the last 8 of any event, then after lost in the First Round of the Champion of Champions against a great Judd Trump, he said he was going to quit Snooker due to his recent results.
But looking at these stats, would you say that this was a bad year? For Maguire it was.
And what about all his career (which is not close to an end yet) ?
He has won 5 Ranking Tournaments including the UK Championship 2004, and 10 professional events in all. He also got to the Last 4 at the Crucible a couple of times.
But Maguire feels himself frustrated describing himself as the greatest ever player who never won the World Snooker Championship.
But if he got the talent, why he didn't win it yet?
He had a brilliant career but should have won more, and still can as he is only 33 years-old.

So, what should Maguire do to improve and get the titles he miss, and make justice to his talent?
I think he could make small changes which would produce a bug difference.

Well, here comes my OPINION:

• I think Stephen Maguire is the kind of player who thinks that when he wins, it's perfect and there's nothing to improve. But he's wrong, there's always something to improve and you must look back to every match to found things to improve. As O`Sullivan said, "The game forced me to improve, the standard is higher now, and I was good, but had to improve or quit". And I think that a player who has won 15 Big Events is a nice inspiration. 
• Maguire always complains about conditions, lucky and even fair play when he lost. He says the opponent was fortunate and he should be luckier; but if there's something I learnt with this sport, is that if you lost you must congratulate your opponent and put the harder you can in the practice table to not be beaten again. But Maguire always think that lucky will change and results come from nothing. He might work hardier on his own game and accept the merits of his rivals.
• Maguire is too hard with himself, he miss a shot and think he's the worst player in the world (and I tell you man, you must be really bad to be worst than Ahmed Saif). He won the 6 Reds World Championship and a few time after he wanted to give up Snooker because he had nothing left in the tank, He should use loses as motivation to spend more time on practice.

I think it's proved that temperament has left Maguire down and if he works on it, new doors will be opened for him soon.

The standard now is very high with such great young players like Judd Trump and Ding Junhui as well as the old school with Ronnie O`Sullivan, Mark Williams and Shaun Murphy (can I call Shaun as an old school player? Who cares); But we know that if Maguire found his game, he can be right there at the top, easy.

And you? 

Do you think that what Maguire has won does justice to his talent?

Can he get himself better to win more? How? Where can he reach?

Well, I must remember that this post was all about my opinion, and I loved to write about Maguire, who is one of my favourite player.

And I must remember also that I don't think that Maguire's title is hidden, as I think you can show your talent even losing, and Maguire's game is beautiful, even when he loses at the first round, it's nice, because some memory from his game will keep.

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