10 Lessons Playing Soccer Taught Me About Life
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Extracting lifelong lessons from the world’s favorite sport
With
an estimated 3.2 billion spectators tuning in to the last FIFA World
Cup, the sport has earned the right to be called a global phenomenon.
Now, with the next world cup just around the corner, I wanted to take a
moment to reflect on the invaluable life lessons I learned through
playing ‘the beautiful game.’
Those
who hate soccer (🇺🇸) see a bunch of grown men chasing down a ball -
but for those who cherish ‘the beautiful game,’ they see a test of
endurance, athleticism, emotions, and strategy in what I call ‘real-time
chess.’
Indeed,
fútbol is a nuanced sport, requiring physical and mental resilience,
spatial intelligence and the ability to think several steps ahead of
your opponent. Therefore, one’s play style is very much a window into
their psychological makeup — beyond how fast someone runs or how
accurately they can shoot, the decision-making and thought processes
behind their actions are largely rooted in their personality. To play
against someone then is equally a mental battle as it is a physical one.
Its
always interesting to see how everyone makes the worldwide game their
own on an individual, team and country-wide level. Typically the
Brazilian culture play with lots of flair, emphasizing dance-like
control over the ball, while Germans play technically and concisely,
with few redundant or unnecessary movements.
Having
grown up with the sport, a ball at my feet feels like a natural
extension of my body, much like a paintbrush does for a painter, or a
vinyl for a DJ. As a kid, I modeled my play after Ronaldinho, who’s
command of the ball is arguably the best in the history of the sport. I
aspire to mimic just a fraction of the magic he produces.
Throughout
my time experimenting with different positions to find my natural fit,
I’ve learned a thing or two about the sport. These lessons not only
stuck with me as in my athletic development, but have actually poured
over into my career, personal life, and just about everything I do. So
without further ado, here are 10 Lessons Playing Soccer Taught Me About Life.
1. Strike with conviction
We’re
taught to shoot with our toes pointed downwards, running through the
ball with our laces and making sure to follow through with the motion.
The form has to be confident and composed.
To
go for (your) goal, you have to be true to your efforts; if you don’t
believe in yourself to hit the target, you never will. Its all about
timing, positioning, power, precision, finesse and form — things that
can easily take shape in any of your life’s endeavors and, if you’re
truly conscious of and use them effectively, will get you to hit more of
your goals through practice. Think of how and where these tips can
apply to your personal life.
Timing — what
tasks should I be prioritizing? When should I schedule my posts,
emails, meetings, interviews? When is the best time to do X, so that I
can achieve Y?
Positioning — am
I where I want to be right now? If not, how can I get there? If so,
where do I want to be next? Am I playing ‘off the ball?’ (see #2).
Power — how much passion and energy am I bringing to my work? Am I being aggressive or assertive?
Precision — how focused am I? Are all of my endeavors aligned? Am I channeling my power correctly?
Finesse — have
I paid attention to the details? Have I put in the minimum amount of
work needed to obtain the maximum result? (Think: 80/20 rule.)
Form — have I perfected areas in life that demand attention? Are the things I’m supposed to know like muscle-memory?
2. Play Smart Off the Ball
What
most people don’t realize about soccer is that the game is played
almost entirely off of the ball. With 22 players on the field, and the
ball at the feet of only one person at a time, the chances for any
individual to hold possession is low.
But
just because you don’t have the ball doesn’t mean you don’t have a job
to do. Positioning is critical for off the ball play, since you want to
make it easier for your teammates to progress up the pitch when they’re
met with resistance. It’s about optimizing your movements to put you in a
better position to receive a pass, play the ball out of danger, make an
assist or score a goal.
How are you playing off the ball?
If
you’re an athlete in general, you have to train at the gym, get enough
sleep and intake optimal nutrition to maintain a competitive advantage.
If you’re a blogger or musician, its not enough to create content, you
have to learn the ins and outs of social media and promote your work
effectively. If you’re a freelancer and just made your first sale,
‘follow through with the motion’ and reach out personally to make sure
they’re enjoying their purchase. If you’re a business owner, you can’t
just be good at the industry, you have to constantly network, crunch
numbers and do the rest of the *business* aspect of your business.
Learn
the ‘optionals’ and ‘nice to have’s’ of your trade to positively impact
the more immediate aspects of your work. The key is to allocate some of
your attention to the less obvious but equally as important tasks, even
if they seem indirect to your overall progress. Be well-rounded, and
commit to the same work ethic ‘off the field’ as you do on it to ensure
your progress.
3. Sometimes You Have to Move Backwards to go Forwards
Soccer
is predominantly a game about stealing space from opposition. The less
space your opponents have, the closer you are to their goal and the more
likely you’ll have a better shot on target. But in order to progress up
the field to get a chance at scoring, you first have to maintain
possession of the ball.
Sometimes
the best option is to take a step back and recalculate your plan. If
you’ve ever performed an exercise at the gym with the wrong form, you
first had to unlearn the improper form to approach the workout again
with the correct one. Sometimes when switching jobs you have to accept a
lower position to find yourself in better company and with more
opportunities. To turn bad habits into good ones, its easier to slowly
weed yourself off of the negative first instead of going for the
immediate swap and attempting a 0-to-100 overnight transformation.
Success
is never a consistently linear path with an upwards trajectory. If
you’ve ever felt like you’ve been moving backwards while conscientiously
trying to make progress, just know that moving backwards is a natural
progression of progress itself.
4. Develop Your Own Style
The
beauty of soccer is that no one body type excels over another. Unlike a
sport like basketball where you have a significant advantage the taller
you are, if you look at the elite soccer players, you won’t notice a
definitive body type that excels at the sport. Sure, it helps to be
stronger, faster, have more stamina, jump higher, but its ultimately how
you play the game and what you can contribute to the team more than it
is any one of the aforementioned traits.
Its
obvious that all players have their own unique makeup when it comes to
mental and physical attributes, which is why Messi and Ronaldo both
thrive despite their wildly different body types.
To
cultivate your own style, its important to first recognize your
strengths and weaknesses. This is of course easier said than done, since
people tend to severely overestimate abilities they’re confident in and
underestimate the ones they’re not. In the event that your ‘favorite
position’ (however that manifests in life) differs from your natural
fit, you’ll have to do some compromising either on your gifts or the
role you play.
Next,
you’re going to have to figure out how to channel your abilities
effectively. Any one skill doesn’t make a player — you have to
experiment and learn how to combine your unique traits to add your mark
and bring value in a way that’s bigger than the sum of your parts. This
is where the magic happens: in aligning the things you’re good at, you
won’t just be contributing enormous value, you’ll do it in a way that’s
uniquely your own.
Be
true to who you are and constantly work on refining what you’re good at
while counterbalancing what you’re not. Just make sure you’re doing
what you love and prefer rather than what comes easiest.
5. For Teams to Thrive, Chemistry Is Everything
Communication
is critical for any team across any discipline. There have been times
when various egomaniacal managers joined a new club and brought in five
new players for their upcoming season. While they splurged their team’s
funds on the best players money could buy, they somehow still ended up
fourth, fifth, sixth on the league table at the end of the season.
Although
the players themselves were world class talent, they had never played
together, and that reality revealed itself time and again on the pitch.
Lack of communication kept the team fragmented and therefore incapable
of making intelligent decisions in the attack, midfield nor defense.
Their mismatched movements and poor connection in the passing lost the
team possession of the ball — the very currency of the game — which many
times resulted in the ball finding the back of their own net.
It ultimately comes down to this: it’s not the team with sensational players, as much as it is the players with a sense of team.
Chemistry
is one of the most underrated facets of a team’s composition for what
its worth, yet it’s the single most critical factor of whether a team
will succeed. Everyone must be able to work fluidly with one another and
balance each other’s respective strengths and weaknesses to work
effectively as a unit. Trust, community and culture are therefore the
glue that holds a team together; without them, you’re just a collection
of individuals.
6. The Leader Isn’t Always the Best Player
There’s
a common misconception that the best player — or even the one that puts
in the most effort — should be the leader. They shouldn’t.
While
Messi is one of (if not) the best player in the world, he’s quite
silent on the field. Because sneakiness is one of his tactics, he relies
on his teammates to scope him out without having to shout or wave his
hands.
While
his contributions to Barcelona have been and continue to be
tremendous — he’s the club’s highest goal scorer and has brought them
countless trophies in the process — he shouldn’t be captain. Despite
having played for the club since childhood, Messi lacks the leadership
that other less-skilled players can offer the team.
Why?
While
leaders should strive to lead by example, mastering the specific skills
that placed them at the top of the totem pole, being good at what you
do is not enough. In fact, it’s not even the most important thing.
As
a leader, you have to be able to facilitate the chemistry of the team,
uniting it through inspiration and communication. Head chefs make sure
the kitchen is organized and running smoothly. CTO’s (chief technology
officer) translate the company’s vision for their engineers, as well as
the engineer’s work for the rest of the company. Film directors
orchestrate the actors to bring out their best for each scene.
While
the soccer player, head chef, CTO and director are all likely the best
in their respective field, it isn’t always the case. More important than
their own capabilities is how they empower others to express theirs. In
the end, the central function of leadership is to produce more leaders.
7. Play with the Goal in Mind
Sometimes
while going through the motions, you lose track of what you’re there to
do. Soccer makes for a particularly nice analogy here because it quite
literally shares the idea of ‘having goals.’
While
in sports the objective is more blatantly apparent, much like in life
you can often forget why you started something in the first place when
faced with more immediate obstacles to overcome. As fatigue sets in and
motivation withers, your ‘why’ has to be be larger than your excuses.
Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Hold yourself accountable.
Passing
and communication are important, just like dieting and business
meetings — but if they’re getting you nowhere then you need to start
changing things up. While we mentioned that progress is never linear in
#3, you’re still at the reigns of your own momentum. Breakthrough
opportunities are just that: breakthroughs. Before you can ‘strike with
conviction,’ you first have to know where the goal is.
Hone your sense of where the goal is. How far are you from hitting your target? What do you need to do to get a better shot?
8. Know Your Enemy
It pays to do your homework.
Who’s your competition? What are their weaknesses? What are their strengths? How do they go about their business?
Needless
to say, professional teams study their opponents well — long before
they shake hands and await the sound of the whistle.
Sometimes
when studying your opponents, you begin to understand yourself better
as well. Differences in philosophies can lead to new insights and
introspection that reveal why you think the way you do and how these
beliefs influence your own ‘style of play.’
Everyone
is playing the same game, but everyone plays it differently. What’s
really the difference between Uber, Lyft, Gett, Via, Juno and the rest
of the on-demand car rides?
While they all basically do the same thing, the way they do it
is unique. Beyond their branding (notice how they’re all starkly
different on that front), the companies seek to differentiate themselves
through key partnerships, pricing models, experiences and so forth.
At a glance, every soccer team is the same, just like every car-share service is the same. But if you take a closer look, you will spot some key differences that have likely emerged as a result of direct competition.
Knowing
your enemy is vital for survival as a person, company, family unit and
so forth. Its important to note though that your enemies may not always
be other people. Treat roadblocks as your enemies and really try to wrap
your head around what they are, why they’re happening and how you’re
going to fix the situation: in the worst case scenario, you come more
prepare. In the best, you’ll learn a thing or two about yourself in the
process.
9. Check to the ball
When
receiving a pass, watching the ball come to you simply won’t cut
it — you have to check to it. The art of receiving a pass is as nuanced
as making a pass; if you merely watch the ball roll closer to you,
someone else will inevitably snatch it before it ever gets to your feet.
Checking
to the ball is a lesser known skill in the game (and in life), but one
that will benefit anyone who learns it tremendously.
How do you check to the ball?
Be
the first one to introduce yourself in a new email thread or social
setting. Learn about the new people you’re going to be working with and
offer to help them with something specific. Approach new opportunities
assertively and really embrace them for the chances they present, don’t
be ‘afraid of the ball.’ Even if an impending moment for greatness seems
inevitable, check to it. Make sure you’re giving it the attention it
deserves long before the moments leading up to it, and do your best to
stay on top of it.
Checking
to the ball means you get to keep the ball. It means you now have more
opportunities, and you don’t have to drop to a defensive or reactive
state. Its just one more way to ensure your success in soccer and in
life.
10. Be Patient
This
last one is easily observed; its really rather intuitive even to people
who don’t play soccer that the game requires endurance and patience. As
a low-scoring game, the value of each goal has tremendous implications
on the result of a match. Players must expend their energies effectively
to last the full 90 minutes, or else risk burning out in the early
stages of the game.
You’ve
likely already heard the saying that life is a marathon, not a sprint;
indeed truer words could not have been said. Pacing yourself requires
discipline, and discipline requires awareness.
Conscientiousness
is arguably the most important life skill, and it helps lead to better
self-management, introspection and the manifestation of your dreams and
desires. Trust in your abilities rather than your luck, and work
diligently to get to where you want to be. The biggest empires weren’t
built overnight, and neither were their star performers.
If you’re reading this, you’re not alone. Overall, 
