The Ideal Player As A Footballer: What Lessons Can The FTSE Learn From A Premier League Game?

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: What Lessons Can The FTSE Learn From A Premier League Game? written by Chuka Okonkwo & Dubem Okonkwo


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: What Lessons Can the FTSE learn from watching a Premier League game? "You've got managers who want to win so much, players will try every trick in the book to get over the line and try and win football matches." Steven Gerard, Liverpool captain The Ideal Footballer As A Playerr agrees with The Tw↑ns: Env↑ronMENTAL Training that many FTSE companies would learn about their own Performance Line if they paid closer attention to what takes place during a football game in the Premier League at the weekend. Strange as it may sound an afternoon or evening spent studying the costly mistakes made by individuals can help resolve mistakes in their business or company over the coming months. Some of you may be asking yourselves how can watching 22 men kicking a round ball or play acting at the feet of the referee assist your business or company? Others may be thinking how much do these players earn a week? Some irate readers may say to themselves that with 'mega wages' and sponsorship deals footballers have no problems. Forget the wages and sponsorship deals for a moment, and focus your attention on performance. In any business, a good performance will yield good results sooner or later and vice versa. Those who concentrate and focus on what matters will succeed. But success is driven by good leaders or by someone taking charge. Factors, e.g. the way the person thinks, the beliefs they hold, the philosophy they foster, all help to breed confidence in a business or company. Decisions made in the boardroom, on the shop floor, or on the football football pitch will manifest in good or bad results. When concentration slips, confidence soon follows, and a business finds itself in trouble.


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Many companies and businesses fail to realise that decision-making relies on self-control and discipline. They will speak of bad luck and other factors handicapping their success, yet forget that successful businesses are working in the same environment. Their success is not down to luck but to the mental attitude of their leaders. This is where a football match can serve as a wonderful lesson if viewed as a science or research project but not as a fan supporting a local club. One way engages the head, the other, the heart. Decisions made with the reasoning faculties in control lead to favourable results when compared to those made where passion is the blind master. The next time you're watching a Premier League football match, note the number of mistakes made over the 90 minutes, then think how many mistakes your company made during the past week or month. At least the mistakes in that match will be spotted and analysed on Match of the Day, and hopefully rectified the following weekend. But who is your firm's Alan Shearer or Gary Lineker? Who tells your CEO and board the errors they've made and the impact those errors could have at the end of the financial year? No one. So blunders are repeatedly committed until their results are displayed for all to read in the pages of the end of year report. Are you still thinking businesses can't learn a thing or two from studying a football match? If that's what you honestly believe, then your company will continue to make a hash of things because of irrational decisions. What other result are you expecting from decisions governed, not by reason but by fear? Haven't Paul Farrow, Simon Lambert and Neil Woodford spoken of the herd (or lemming) mentally pervasive in many FTSE companies?


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Without proper leadership, fools rush in where wise investors fear to tread. Herd mentality costs investors dear by Paul Farrow http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/shares-and-stock-tips/8129968/Herd-mentality-costs-investors-dear.html The wisdom of crowd or herd mentality? by Simon Lambert http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-2939905/MINOR-INVESTOR-Crowdfunding-wisdom-crowd-just-herd-mentality.html " Players want to win so much," Steven Gerard, Liverpool captain http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31857114 Start-ups are losing out on funding due to herd mentality finders by Neil Woodford http://www.smeinsider.com/2014/09/26/start-ups-are-losing-out-on-funding-due-to-herd-mentality-funders-says-industry-insider/ "Gerrard is for me, in the position he plays, one of the very best in the world. He has a huge impact. For the job he performs, for me, he is one of the greatest." Ronaldinho in 2007 with both players named in the FIFA World XI.[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Gerrard Neil Woodford speaking on Today (BBC Radio 4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p027djlx


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer knows the importance of self discipline, self control, self-mastery. Why do you think he studies assiduously 'The 2010 World Cup South Africa: England's Preparations' and 'The Follow-up: The Next Step To Take'? He finds it useful to constantly remind himself that lapses in concentration can often result in more than a red card. The two reports focus on the importance of a player training himself to maintain his focus at all times during a game. If only the highly decorated captain of that Premier League team had done the same (Liverpool v Man Utd 22 March 2015). He might have discovered valuable points not taught in football academies. But whatever they're taught, players seem to ignore or forget about them the moment they step on the field. And just as a bull goes mad when it sees a red cloth, so it appears young (and even older) players also go mad when they see blades of grass. They charge about foolishly, and end up having to apologies for their behaviour when it results in a sending-off. Is there any logic to leaving your teammates disadvantaged because your exuberance has got the better of you? One wonders if these players will ever learn. The Ideal Player As A Footballer understands the need for the captain, as leader, to want to stamp his mark on a game, to impose his will on the field, to support his players and to inspire them, to take command in a given situation. However, none of these are possible to perform from the dugout when you're recovering from a hamstring injury, and certainly not from having to sit out three vital games because of a lack of self-discipline. To The Ideal Player As A Footballer every act of ill-discipline is a lapse of concentration. He does not care who you are, what honours you have won or why the transgression occurred. No, he doesn't buy the 'heat of the moment' excuse. To him, your duty as a player and as the captain is to help your team win the match. You owe it to yourself to train and discipline your mind, every day, in order to ensure rash behaviour is completely eradicated from your game.


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" Players want to win so much," Steven Gerard, Liverpool captain http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31857114 Is that why players dive and simulate, and urge the referee to bestow red cards on their opponents? Is that why players grapple in the penalty area and commit needless fouls up and down the field? Do we see the familiar herd mentality here? The Ideal Player As A Footballer feels that if players leave the dressing room with such thoughts of the herd ingrained in their brains, it is no wonder they have no self-control on the field. What is the benefit of being so pumped up that you can see nothing but red? Why fall for the traps laid by opponents to have your colleagues a man short? Can you not make the sacrifice of ignoring that brutal and unfair challenge for the sake of your team? Are you so peeved at that elbow in your face (reckless and dangerous as it was [Come on, ref, are you blind?]) that you prefer to smoulder on the bench instead of being on the field beating the opposition. Where is your concentration? Where is your sense of pride? The Ideal Player As A Footballer believes that if a player wants 'to win so much' he has to learn to concentrate better. Concentration is the only assured way to win 'so much'. Concentrate for 90 minutes of the game or for longer if required. Concentrate on every tackle. Concentrate on everything taking place around you. Concentrate with every challenge. Concentrate on every header. Concentrate on every shot. Concentrate on every pass. Concentrate on every save. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate concentrate. If you feel it's too much or too difficult for you to concentrate, you're in the wrong sport. You don't need Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, et al to tell you about concentration. However, if your lapses of concentration happen to be dissected on Match of The Day be thankful (they mean your career no harm.) and pay close attention to what they have to say. Unless if it has anything to do with a dubious 'penalty shout'.


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"Sometimes it doesn't look nice...", Steven Gerard, Liverpool captain http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31857114 You're damned right that it doesn't look nice. It's ugly, downright ugly. So why is it practiced week in and week out? Why mock the sport, the club and viewing spectators with something that doesn't look nice? As a player, does it not trouble you that you prefer to select such route, just to win, rather than taking the steps required to concentrate to achieve success? The Ideal Player As A Footballer takes his role as a player very seriously, and would never do anything that brings the sport he loves into disrepute. He knows the importance of striving to focus on delivering a masterclass to everyone watching the game. He wants your attention to be solely on his artful display and nothing else. He wants you to learn from him how to concentrate under pressure. He has no interest in demeaning his talent by selecting to get away with a professional foul. "...but we've all been guilty of it throughout our careers, of not always abiding by the rules." Steven Gerard, Liverpool captain http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31857114 The Ideal Player As A Footballer is a law unto himself and doesn't care for the opinion of professionals with their cynical practices. Speaking for himself, he promotes his own philosophy, but he has never been guilty of or felt the need to challenge the rules set by the IFAB. When a player accepts the false doctrines of 'the tricks' of dishonest play, he must be prepared to have his subconscious mind express those deep-rooted beliefs at an inopportune moment . He fools himself if he thinks he can maintain such beliefs and at the same time prevent them from affecting his game. Sorry UEFA Player of the Year 2005, but the root of that weekend's rush of blood to your head lies in your beliefs.


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"Gerrard is for me, in the position he plays, one of the very best in the world. He has a huge impact. For the job he performs, for me, he is one of the greatest." Ronaldinho in 2007 with both players named in the FIFA World XI.[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Gerrard Will Gerard sending-off cost Liverpool? http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/32012236 So as we can see, mistakes can be costly, just like lapses of concentration. But you don't need to watch a Premier League game to understand how, do you? That may be the case, but we can definitely learn from many of these players how not to concentrate if we want to see any success in our business life. "You either abide by the rules or you don't. There is no in between." The Islington Tw↑ns

Leadership & Management

The Ideal Player As A Footballer: What Lessons Can The FTSE Learn From A Premier League Game?