Leadership Lessons from the World Cup
Superstars; Team Play; Team Belief; The Characteristics of Winning Teams
Every four years, superstar players who all play in different professional fũtbol leagues (soccer!) for different teams come together to play for their respective national teams.
And just like the Olympics, there are clear lessons to be learned that we can transfer from sports to business.
Lesson #1: Superstar talent still needs a team system
The World Cup games so far are giving us a perfect case study of talent vs team.
Nearly every game, the focus begins with the superstars - Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Christian Pulisic (USA), and Erling Haaland (Norway).
Each team has one - and no more than two - of these superstars, but we are witnessing very different results from the overall teams.
Yes, you need star players; those people who can make the play in the moment. But the superstars who need the team system bent around their preferred style usually end up losing.
The successful teams have successful superstars with teammates who know how to play to the superstar’s strengths. We’ve seen a lot of crosses into Haaland due to his physical stature and his remarkable heading ability. Messi’s teammates seem to be psychic at knowing where he will be before they pass it to him.
Lesson #2: Teams need the right players on the field playing their positions the right way
Just as in the World Cup matches, there’s also a noticeable rhythm and rigor in winning companies. For the World Cup, the teams that keep their spacing, make sharp and quick passes, and keep trusting their teammates to be in the proper position when they pass to that space, well, they score and win.
The opposite is also painfully true.
Case in point is Portugal’s Ronaldo. He is one of the best players ever. But, at 41 years of age and playing Spain, the best defensive team in the world, Ronaldo no longer has the quick bursts of speed to get past the defense. His current style (due mainly to his age) is to try to find the right space and hope his teammates can thread the defensive needle to allow him to touch the ball in a very tight space. Spain’s defensive style of play requires physical talent Ronaldo no longer has. Quite frankly, and this is a hard thing to say, he should not have been on the field for the Spain match if Portugal wanted to win. Or, better, Portugal should have put another faster attacker on the front line and changed their positional structure if they wanted to keep their superstar on the field.
Lesson #3: Team belief
We all saw this in the first two games that the USA played. We saw how their belief translated to their play on the field that carried them in their exciting wins. We then witnessed what happens when the same team clearly believed they were outmatched, almost from the original kickoff against Belgium. The power of belief, or in this case non-belief, was stunning to witness.
Then there was Cabo Verde.
Lesson #4: Smaller teams with lesser talent can make the teams full of superstars very uncomfortable when every player plays their position and owns their zone
Cabo Verde may be the best leadership story of the tournament. They did not have Argentina’s history, global brand, or superstar roster. But, they had structure, courage, and enough belief to push the defending champions into extra time before losing 3–2. They answered back twice in the final minutes when most everyone had counted them out and forced Argentina to literally survive a match.
Lesson #5: When the original game plan breaks, the team’s leaders need to adjust
Both England’s win over Mexico and the USA’s win over Bosnia-Herzgovenia are great leadership examples because their matches didn’t stay clean.
Both teams went up early. Both of their opponents fought back. Both teams received red cards and were forced to go down to 10 players.
Both games immediately became less about the original plan and all about adjustment, resilience, and collective discipline.
The larger lesson was that both teams had to change how they played once the conditions changed. They had to defend differently, communicate differently, manage the clock differently, and survive the uncomfortable parts of the match.
That is exactly what happens inside companies. The original plan almost never survives contact with the market, the customer, the competitor, the board, or the cash forecast. Great leaders do not fall in love with the plan; they stay committed to the scoreboard and adjust the shape of the team in real time.
Lesson #6: When it’s penalty kick time, it’s time to focus and perform
Companies have penalty-kick moments. They come in the form of making a critical contract pricing call or wholesale pricing changes… or the layoff or reorg decisions, the acquisition offer, the board forecast reset, the “do we keep funding this product?” decision.
Companies find out very quickly whether your team has practiced its “penalty kicks.”
The Argentinas of the business world simply know they can win even when the pressure is extremely high. They focus and execute and simply believe they will win.
Argentina’s 0-2 comeback against Egypt was extremely impressive. They could have folded after their superstar Messi missed a penalty kick, but they stayed connected and scored two quick goals in the last 15 minutes of the match and then stunned Egypt with the final winning goal right before the end of regulation time.
Lesson #7: Reputations & Narratives don’t win games
Brazil is out. Portugal is out. USA is out. Canada is out. They all had their stars. Brazil and Portugal had an extremely strong historical reputations. USA and Canada had media narratives of home field advantage and “this could be the year.”
But, these reputations and narratives didn’t track their oppositions’ runners or defend their opponents’ transitions, and they certainly didn’t “finish” their chances in front of the goal or make the amazing goalie saves.
Same goes for companies.
Companies that have raised too much money, hired too many impressive resumes, or become too proud of their own narrative often eventually have executional staying power problems. Brand helps these companies recruit. History and media hype earns short term attention. Prior wins create confidence.
But reputation and narratives do not execute. The team does. The customer still decides. The market still decides. The scoreboard tells the final scores at the end of each round.
Lesson #8: Ugly wins still count
France (a perennial powerhouse) beat Paraguay 1-0. It was not a masterpiece. It was a grind, and many said the play on the pitch was ugly and disjointed. But France figured it out in the end and won a hard fought victory.
As a leader, this is a key lesson to remember: not every quarter is going to be elegant. Not every product launch is clean. The operating plan never unfolds with perfect assumptions. Sometimes the job is to simply move forward. Stabilize the extremely upset customer. Close the financing. Protect the cash. Ship the release. Make the decision. Great teams don’t focus on style points. They simply focus on wins and continuous improvement.
Final Business Lesson: The Scoreboard Defines Winning
A great company or team meeting is not the scoreboard. A great org chart/roster is not the scoreboard. The loudest voice in the room is not the scoreboard. The founder’s preferences, the CFO’s model, the COO’s processes, or the Sales Leader’s favorite Go-To-Market motion are not the scoreboard.
The scoreboard is the team’s shared goal whether it be revenue, margin, customer trust, product quality, or whatever metric that actually defines the match or the round you are trying to win.
How are we trying to win?
How much time do we have left?
What zone or team structure are we in?
Is everyone playing their position properly?
Do we need to sub anybody out?
Are we playing to our strengths?
Are we exploiting our opponent’s weaknesses?
Who Will Win?
We’ll all know in a few weeks, but I’m certain the teams that advance will be the ones that combine their talent, trust, belief, positioning, discipline, and execution under pressure.
Your company and your team are no different.
In the end, few people will remember the exact player who scored the goals.
But they will remember the team who won the match.
And even if you lose the match, like Cabo Verde, you can win the hearts of others who may have never heard of you by playing like a team and leaving it all on the field (“pitch”).
