3 Leadership Lessons from the Fifa World Cup 2018

Let me start with a confession: I am not an avid football fan. If you were to catch me watching something, you would more likely find me watching Teddy Bear Detectives with my kids than a league football match. However, I did grow up in England and played young league football till I was in in my teens, so I have a basic understanding of the game. I am also fascinated by perspectives on leadership through sport and it’s with that interest I write.

1. Superstars will always fail us

John 3:30: “He must become greater, I must become less…”
A beautiful thing about the game of football is that it is extremely rare to find one player taking the ball from the back of the field to score a goal by himself. This is common in games like basketball, but not football. The game is made to maximise the defensive and offensive abilities of the whole team.
This year we have seen superstars like Messi and Ronaldo and their teams crash out and not live up to expectations. Football is built off a cohesion of talent working together. Unless you have a good team as a whole, the chances of going far aren’t large, even if you have a few superstars. The reality is that even the most talented star has bad days, or even bad weeks or months, when they just can’t perform at optimum. The superstar expectations of constant and consistent high performance is never realistic.
Over the last several decades of television, and now the internet, we’ve created a massive culture of entertainment. With entertainment, we need entertainers. These are the heroes of our day. We love to single people out so that we can make them our celebrity idols; the gods of our day. This last week, two men in West Bengal and Kerala commited suicide on hearing that Argentina had exited the World Cup. They were evidently massive fans of Messi. Their god was defeated.
Creating superstars gives us a more centred point to follow and get excited about, but the team is the one that really wins games. Organisations or groups that are simply led by one or two superstars don’t and can’t live up to expectations. A solid team of talents and a culture of building up others, working together in cohesion and celebrating the whole team is what we should be aiming for. 

2. The defensive line is underrated

Matthew 20:27–28 “…and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
More often than not, superstars are the ones who score the goals. A quick Google search on the ‘top 10 footballers in the world’ will give you around 7–8 strikers or offensive midfielders: the ones who score the goals. Although this is a much discussed topic in the world of football, it’s generally agreed that a good defensive line doesn’t get enough credit. As the saying goes: “Offence wins games, defence wins championships”. At the end of the day, if a team simply can’t score goals against you, the odds of winning in the long run are higher.
I feel bad for defenders. They may have a wonderful game and defend every ball coming their way, but they make one small mistake and the game is lost. The glory will often be put on those who scored the goals; those are the names we read in the papers. An amazing tackle is given much less credence than a goal. Look at the where all the celebration is on the field. It all happens when a player scores a goal. We’ve seen in several instances in this World Cup when players even celebrated goals that weren’t their own as if they were – they want the glory.
Defenders have to perform at 100 percent all the time. One little mishap and the game can go against them – that is not much room for error. Compared to the strikers who most of the time miss shots, a defender’s role is very unforgiving.
Defenders and defensive midfielders are the core base of the team. In any team, I’ll take a core group of solid and systematic hard workers over one or two charismatic men of talent. I like to see the defensive line as the service area of the team, protecting their goal so the other team’s goal can be in focus. These are men and women of service.
The service mindset is that of sacrificing oneself for others so that the whole team can perform better. Having a main group of hard workers who have this mindset in any organisation will guarantee long-term success. 

3. Superstardom will always be short-lived

Matthew 20:26 “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant…”
At 35 years old now, I have become aware that my body is probably past my physical prime. I still feel young but things are slowly becoming a little harder for me. I have to put in more effort to stay healthy and feel slightly (although not completely) slower than I did in my 20s.
They say that for a man, the physical peak is actually only around 8 years. You can see this clearly in the statistics of professional players. Most will be at their peak performance between 26–28 years of age – that is only a couple of years! In the Fifa World Cup, we see this more than ever; sometimes whole teams will change from one 4-year period to the other.
Superstars players really don’t have that long to shine. Messi, Ronaldo and Suarez won’t be playing big roles in World Cup 2022, if any. Focusing on a team and team development is always the best way to succeed over a longer period. Bringing this to a personal development level, our focus must not be on short bursts of fame or glory. Consistent hard work and faithfulness over a long period of time will alway breed success.
Contributed by Jonny Abraham
Jonny is the Chief Servant and Delegator of Fusion in New Delhi. He is passionate about servant leadership. In his non-spare time, Jonny consults on leadership training with NGOs, companies and UN agencies. In his spare time, he spares time for a lovely wife and two boisterous daughters.