Thinking Football: Tailoring the approach. (Part 2)

In Part 1, we observed how an approach to football tactics can mirror the approach we take to achieving our goals. We also reviewed the ways that approaches to attacking and defending mirror (1) the steps we take to achieve the goal and (2) how we maintain motivation/our ability to commit to the goal despite opposition.

Let’s look at an example  — let’s say you are trying to look for a job:

Attack (pursuing the goal) includes:

·       Prioritising a High quantity of opportunities (Aggressive & Direct): you can apply to as many jobs as possible in your desired field, give your CV to as many people as possible in your given field and hope to get an opportunity/interview and then contract.

·       Prioritising a High quality of opportunities (Patient) — undertake courses, meet careers’ advisers, do careers tests and do a personal skills inventory to really understand the type of work you want to do, do research on the companies of interest, undertake personal projects in your spare time, pursue your particular passion for a company, network and only then make an application to this specific company.

Defence (maintaining ability to pursue the goal) includes:

·       Aggressive defence with high pressure, winning ball back quickly (Resilience): bouncing back after rejection, ask for feedback, chasing and follow-up on emails, develop a creative alternative offering, looking for other opportunities within the same company, asking hiring manager for additional information about the post or move on to next opportunity — keep applying to various other similar opportunities etc.

·       Patient defence — (Endurance) — accepting reality, positive self-talk, creating a plan B, reflecting on why you didn’t get the job, reviewing your areas for improvement, reflecting on what you really want to do, pivoting or taking time out before taking another opportunity.

A range of factors will determine your approach — such as:

·       how important the opportunity is to you –

·       how much you feel you need the opportunities on offer and

·       what your dream job or ultimate goal is,

·       priorities and ‘non-negotiables’ such as salary.

In addition to several factors outside of your control, such as:-

·       the quality of the market

·       health challenges and personal crises,

·       unforeseen circumstances and black swan events.

On an episode of the Tifo Football Podcast — discussing the importance of patience in football. It was stressed that managers like Pep Guardiola, Thomas Tuchel and Mikel Arteta emphasise the need for having control of games — (with Arteta stating control is insufficient, preferring the concept of ‘dominance’). These are teams who try to spend as little of the match without the ball and as much of it trying to attack the opposition goal. The episode emphasised the importance of confidence and composure in attack as being essential characteristics of successful teams. At the 27-minute mark, it was highlighted that teams are ideally calm, composed and patient in possession — but apply aggressive defensive pressure and try to win the possession back quickly, once they lose it – (an approach the podcasters highlight is a very difficult balance to adopt mentally.)

In the context of the football analogy — a dominant strategy would see us being thorough, planned, methodical and measured when approaching opportunities — creating high quality opportunities to score and protecting our ability to pursue our goal by trying to get another opportunity as quickly as possible after failure (being resilient).