Lessons from La Pulga

This has probably been done already, I'll do it also, shamelessly. In this article, I share a few life and leadership lessons I drew from Messi's exploits with La Albiceleste (the Argentinian national football team) from the 2014 world cup till now. A few caveats: this article is by no means an academic one and neither is it written from a "LinkedIn-leadership-influencer" perspective, but it is purely from a fan's perspective. The second caveat is obvious, telling from the preceding one: I am a staunch Messi fan and his instrumentality in the 2022 world cup win feels like a vindication to all his supporters who have had to endure endless, passionate, and often heated accusations about Messi's incompetence as a leader. The third is intuitive, although we are attempting to draw lessons exclusively from Messi, it has become difficult, or nearly impossible to talk about Messi without Ronaldo being a part of the story and vice-versa. The sixteen-year-old rivalry between these great icons of the sport of football has ensured that Ronaldo is spoken about in the context of Messi and Messi in that of Ronaldo. My personal stance on the G.O.A.T debate might permeate this piece, and so I ask you to bear with me and glean what I hope will be the core of this article: lessons on life and leadership.

Five leadership lessons will be found here, most seep into each other and can be considered as one, but splitting them allows for an in-depth analysis that brings to the fore what might be otherwise missed. These lessons make sense when viewed in the context of Messi's journey with La Albiceleste. As such, the next paragraph gives a high-level background of where Messi found himself in the time period of consideration. For those who are familiar with the background, feel free to jump to lesson 1: RESILIENT RESILIENCE.

BACKGROUND: THE STORY

Messi made his debut for Argentina (senior team) in 2005 and while Messi quickly set himself as a cornerstone of his boyhood club Barcelona, winning his first Ballon d'Or at the tender age of 22, his rise in the national team wasn't as meteoric. His first senior tournament was the Copa America in 2007, in which Argentina lost the final to Brazil. By the 2014 world cup, Messi, the captain, was the man to restore glory to the Albiceleste, the heir to Diego Maradona. Although he won the world cup golden ball (given to the best player of the tournament), Messi did not score in the final, and Argentina lost 1-0 to Germany. In the very next year, Argentina lost the Copa America final to Chile on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes and this result was to repeat itself in 2016 when Argentina lost again to Chile on penalties in the Copa America Centenario final. Four final losses for Messi, three as captain. In the 2018 world cup, Argentina was knocked out by France in the round of 16 and only scrapped a third-place finish at the 2019 Copa America. In 2021, Messi's Argentina won the Copa America, where he was crowned the best player of the tournament. 2022 came with a Fnialissima win and most importantly, a world cup final win.

LESSON 1: RESILIENT RESILIENCE

The title of this lesson sounds rather redundant, but this is the exact life lesson we glean from this story. Sometimes it is difficult to gauge resilience. Loosely defined, resilience is bouncing back from a difficult time. But does a once-off bounce back constitute resilience? And what if you bounce back from the difficult period and you find yourself thrown back into another dark period in which you are unable to recover as quickly, can you say you are resilient based on the fact that you only bounced back from the first dark period? The answers to these questions probably vary from person to person, but what we can learn from the "so-near-yet-so-far" moments from Messi is that we need resilient resilience; one that bounces back until the target has been hit and the goal has been reached. The reality we learn here is that we might come back stronger to fail again, but as long as there is a chance and an opportunity, we must put our best foot forward. Messi lost in four finals, three as captain in three years, but afterward won 3 major finals in two years. It is a fairytale ending to a career, probably akin to something out of Hollywood. Fairytales do not happen often, but, regardless of our past failures, if we do not try again when we have the realistic potential to, we eliminate them completely.

LESSON 2: IT'S OKAY TO BREAK, IT'S EVEN BETTER TO MEND

Following their heartbreaking Copa loss for the second time to Chile in 2016, Messi announced his international retirement. He declared, at the time, that he was convinced that it was the end for him with Argentina and that perhaps trophies with the national team weren't for him. He had felt overwhelming sadness again and again after losing four finals, three in quick succession. Putting on Messi's shoes, one can imagine the amount of pressure and expectation that weighed on Messi's shoulders: leading a country that had previously tasted two world cup titles and won the Copa fourteen times. The lesson here is that sometimes failure breaks us. This will be the reality more often than not, especially in goals that we have set our whole lives to accomplish. Sometimes we can only fight so much. In such instances it is okay to fold, it is okay to reconsider and it is okay to go through all the emotions as the situation demands: it is okay to break.

Upon Messi's retirement, many players from the world, particularly Argentinian players came out in support of Messi, encouraging him to not retire yet. Notable among these were Diego Maradona, Mauricio Macri (then Argentine president), and Lionel Scaloni who later became the coach who would guide Argentina to the Copa and World cup victories. In no time, Messi announced that he would come out of retirement to try with La Albiceleste once more. The rest is written in history. The lesson here is that sometimes when we have been broken, we must not close ourselves out from the faith that exists in those around us. Sometimes we do not have the courage, but those around us have the courage in our abilities. We must tap in and harness the belief and the willpower that exists in the people around us on our behalf, and use it to set alight once more the desire to give it one (or few) more shots. It is okay to break, it is even better to mend and go again to war.

LESSON 3: PASSION, WORK ETHIC, AND BRILLIANCE ARE THE BEST GALVANIZING AGENTS OUT THERE, TAKE DOUBLE DOSES.

At the start of the article, I mentioned the opinions that flooded comment-section debates criticizing Messi's leadership. The basis of these claims was the comparison of Ronaldo and Messi's leadership styles. Ronaldo is more outspoken in comparison, posting more often on social media. The pinnacle of Ronaldo's outspoken leadership in my opinion was in the Euro 2016 final where he was a player-cum-coach, inspiring his nation to victory. Ronaldo's Euro win, occurring right when Messi lost his third final as captain led to conversations as to whether Messi is a leader at all and if he can ever step up and deliver in big matches.

From a seemingly hopeless Argentina unit, the squad has transformed into a formidable unit under the leadership of Messi, setting a national unbeaten record of 36 matches. The inspiring team talk that Messi gave to the Argentina squad before the Copa 21 final undoubtedly set the psychological tone for La Albiceleste as they went on to defeat Brazil 1-0. As more of these out-of-public-eye moments emerge, it becomes apparent that "loud" is not the only legitimate form of leadership. Although this kind of leadership has worked for Ronaldo in Portugal, seeing them win two international trophies, there have been times when Portugal has not shone (2014 & 2018 World-cups for example) regardless of an externally expressive kind of leadership. More interviews have surfaced from Argentinian players expressing how they are playing not only for themselves but for captain Messi. He is at the heart of their work ethic and their heart of their attempts. What Messi specifically did to galvanize this young crop of players around his vision and goal of winning the world cup may never be fully known, but I posit that his passion, work ethic, and brilliance were infectious in getting others to want the same. An observation I made is how the team celebrated almost every goal with Messi being the center of celebration even if he did not score the goal or provide an assist. As a leader, you need to ensure that your vision is infectious to your team beyond ensuring that you are perceived as an effective leader by external parties which has no bearing on the goals you want to accomplish. Once that has been achieved, where everyone is giving every ounce of sweat, blood, and tears for the same vision, the goals you have cease to be insurmountable, and working together becomes easier.

LESSON 4: CREDIT THE TEAM AND BUILD CREDIT FROM THE TEAM

Messi racked up an astounding five player of the match awards in the 2022 world cup setting a single-edition record. His five-award haul saw him take his tally up to eleven awards, the most by any player ever. Despite his exploits, Messi insisted in all post-match interviews that the award was better deserved by the team and not him as an individual. At the collection of his world cup final player of the match, the reporter casually mentioned that he knew Messi would say the whole team deserved the award.

The leadership fruit to pick here is that more often than not, as leaders and faces of teams, the success of the team will be credited to us first. There exists a choice, to take the credit or to put the team in the spotlight so they may bask in the glory of their hard work (rightfully so). Messi gave one of his player of the match awards to teammate Alexis Mac Allister after a good performance, and this worked wonders for his self-confidence which was visible in Mac Allister's composure and work rate in matches that followed. Every time a leader credits their team for work well done, they gain credit in terms of extra effort and dedication that the team will naturally give as work goes on.

LESSON 5: A BUMP IS NOT AN ISSUE, DON'T LET IT BE.

The final that led to Messi's brief hiatus from international football is not only famous for that, but also for Messi's missed spot kick in the penalty shootout. In the most delicate moment, Leo stepped up to the penalty spot and skied his shot. Argentina did not recover in the shootout. The miss led to the coining of the nickname "Miss Penalty" , accompanied by a poorly photoshopped Messi onto a beauty pageant contestant and a wave of crying-Messi memes. At the 2022 world cup, Messi had a penalty saved by Szcz?sny in their group game against Polland. Despite Messi's previous penalty heroics such as being the only player to score Argentina's penalty in the Copa 2015 penalty shootout amongst others, there were discussions of whether Argentina should find another spot-kick specialist aside from Messi. In spite of the negative energy surrounding Messi's penalty-taking abilities, the flash-backs from 2016, and the potential and likely abusive explosion if Messi missed again at crucial moments, this world cup saw Messi rise to the occasion, immaculately taking the first penalty in the quarter-finals and the final as is expected of a captain (read leader). This is something Neymar did not do, and unfortunately, Brazil crashed out in the quarter-finals.

The lesson here is very simple, sometimes we score some, and sometimes we miss some. A bump is not an issue if we trust our abilities and work hard at recovery. There might be a lot of noise outside which highlights our failures to make them underpinning moments of our careers, but if we trust ourselves and realise that a bump is just that, then we take back the power to write our own story as we want to. As I write this article, the Miss-penalty and crying-Messi memes are just that, memes belonging to history, with no power, simply because Messi stepped up and scored when it mattered the most. Had Messi stopped taking penalties, the Copa 2016 penalty would have been the dark spot of his illustrious career because he would never have been seen as having recovered from it.

CONCLUSION

There is a lot we can learn about leadership from observation, and most leadership traits are career-transmissible. What we see in sports can be applied just as effectively in corporate boardrooms, political halls, and factory floors. As an engineer, these simple lessons will revolutionize the team I lead. What else did you learn and where will you apply these lessons?