To Lead is To Serve
I've never cried during or because of a sporting event. Not even one's I’ve participated in competitively. I'm happy to win, always grateful my team has won, but I'm not one for emotions in that department, and I'm a fairly emotional gal. On April 14, 2024, I cried at the conclusion of a football match. I shocked myself with the full-on water works that sprang watching Bayer Leverkusen win their first ever Meisterschale.
So, I like sports, but I love football, like seriously love it. I started playing when I was nine and stopped when I was 19. As I've gotten older, I've grown to love it more than when I was a competitive player, and that surprises me because I haven’t been on a pitch in well over a decade. Out of all the sports played in the world, besides maybe athletics and that's a solitary endeavour, football is the game for the people. You don’t need fancy equipment or a unique playing field, just a round ball. A great book was written about the unifying uniqueness of football, How Football Explains the World by Franklin Foer, and even that tome doesn’t do justice to the beautiful game.
In following football I have not only learned of the history of nations, but have also understood the evolution of modern history. The majority of football teams came to life as recreational men's workers clubs that grew and became professional teams and leagues. How strange that such modest beginnings have manifested into the most corrupt and greedy organizations in the world. I have been an Arsenal supporter since I don’t when and I don’t know why. There was just something incredible about this incredibly diverse team, who played with such joy and tact, all under the surliest looking manager ever. Yet, in the past decade it’s become harder to watch my Gunners, mainly due to the state of the Premier League. The pre-eminent soccer league in the world that has so lost track of itself, that it now primarily stands for money and injuries. Watching a Premier League match is watching a bunch of overpriced pawns fanny about a pitch until injury strikes.Or worse, sale to inexperienced, arrogant Americans who destroy tradition. (Yes,there’s ton of Arab money flowing in as well, but at least they’ve figured out how to let people who know what they’re doing properly deplete their trillions.)The Premier League became so uninteresting I started watching the Bundesliga, a league so wonderfully steeped in tradition and stubbornness that it’s like following day time drama. Yes, the gulf between Bayern Munich and other teams was massive, but in the past couple of years that gulf has become negligible and matches a pure joy. Which brings me to Bayer Leverkusen, they’re not my team (I don’t really have a Bundesliga team) but I cannot deny that like much of the football world, I have enjoyed their upward trajectory this year.
Xabi Alonso, a Spanish great, came from out of nowhere and displayed the characteristics of a true leader. Elected from out of obscurity, with little leadership experience, but a great heart and the willingness to adapt, he and his staff built a team nothing short of extraordinary, all for a fraction of the price Bayern and other big-name teams have spent. He’s got veterans,newcomers and just middle of the road forgotten footballers, who through his guidance have played the games of their lives. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen professional football players genuinely enjoy themselves, and watching Alonso’s men laugh not just off the pitch but on, is testament to the cohesion through grit and levity he has created. Much has been written and seen about Alonso’s constant inclusion and praise of his back of house staff. Not a press conference goes by that he doesn’t put all the praise on his staff and players. To have a 40-someunbeaten streak in all competitions, in a chock-a-block full calendar, is incroyable.To do it with constant humility, is divine. The greatest leaders in history were those who no one thought much of. They were the ones who rose to the occasion when either no one could or would. With unorthodox backgrounds and minimal experience they took the dirty job. That they changed the course of history is not nearly as important as how they did it. You don’t need to have a full toolbox of pedigree to be a great leader, you just need to understand that to lead is to serve. You are never, ever first.
