The Team Game Law

A player's visibility increases where interaction and common framework transform individual effort into collective resonance.

I still remember an episode that happened many years ago, when I started to attend faculty. I was training together with my colleagues. We had our team, we had been playing for quite some time together, we got well together on the field. Like almost always, several teams in the faculty participated at the trainings. We would play by rotation by the rule: "ten minutes or two goals".

Suddenly, the main player of one of the adverse teams injured himself. Not being able to continue, his team mates had to borrow a player from another team that was not playing. And, as they were inpatient and they had an intense desire to win, they didn't chose by chance. They chose Dănuţ, the captain of one of the teams that wasn't playing, an exceptional player, whose talent was recognized and appreciated by all of us. Now, they thought, they will win the game and maybe even those that will come.

Do you construct your performance as a believable projection of your potential, such that harnessing it magnifies your impact in the context of the concrete reality of the game?

Whoever said that things can go well only if you have on your team an exceptional player was wrong. On that day, the respective team lost all the games. And in every game he played for that team, Dănuţ played very poorly, much under his usual level, much under the expectancies of his team mates. And then I wondered: why?

The answer was obvious. The game style practiced by Dănuţ was a lot different from that of his new team mates, and to which they couldn't adapt at all. Dănuţ played a more running game and attacked more, more alertly, with many fast and short passes, on the ground, few dribblings, attacks in the middle and many distance shots, while his team mates practiced a cautious defense game, more primitive, with high and long passes, rarely making brave counterattacks, keeping their energy, not being able to build anything interesting.

One thing is certain, and my experience has confirmed this: "The probability of a single player achieving excellent results is directly proportional to the quality and level of performance of the other teammates."

A leader does not attract attention only through the goals he scores, but through the frequent changes in the pace of the game that turn into a common effort.

The attitude of each player changes according to the performance of his entire team. No progress can be made by a team which doesn't have a single, united, totally developed game stile. Only playing as often as possible together will players be able to develop a common and performing game style, based on teamwork and understanding, not on competition, a game style that would impose a certain rhythm, defensive or offensive, which would make the best advantage. You must not forget the fact that each player's attitude changes depending on the performance of the entire team. For a team, just like for only one player, nothing is more difficult to bear than the permanent uncertainty given to the lack of unity in order to make a perfect game.

Without very good team mates, a player, regardless of his talent, will always lack energy, determination and he will play reluctantly. Under no circumstance will he be just as self-confident, and this will make the others be, at their turn, uncertain of his performance. The success of a team doesn't depend on the best player, unless the team is very united. As a matter of fact, the team is everything, and if the other team mates' abilities and aptitudes are below his level, he won't be able to excel and continuously perfect himself.

Can you convince your teammates to make a game of endurance at the limit of the impossible in case of exceeding the limit of contribution to the ideal of unity?

The game can reach the limit of the impossible when your teammates have total control of the ball and show that they are very good but cannot score any goals. Practically, they have reached the limit of contribution to the ideal of unity, but they do not obtain any victory.

In leadership, this is an effect of a lack of consistency in how to maintain the attractiveness and temperature of the final destination. At the destination arrive those people with the results of finished races, not those who overestimate their attitude during the adrenaline filled journey.

When another person comes to a team's leadership, everything is taken from the ground up. When Dănuţ was co-opted for the new team, the entire game should have changed. His performance level obviously being way better than the other players', it should have been an alarm signal for them, a signal which should have put them all on guard, wake them, detach them from the chain of routine, motivate them to play a lot better and mould by his game style.

But he couldn't do that because it was impossible in such a short time to make them be aware of the benefits which they could obtain if they would practice his game style. Dănuţ couldn't guarantee the success of his new team not because he didn't succeed in integrating himself in it, but because his team mates, who were net inferior to him as far as value and game quality performed are concerned and they couldn't adapt to the alert rhythm which he imposed right from the start.

Never rely on the best player, it is not mandatory that his performance will bring a team's success.

Leadership: Are you turning your experience from an abstract obstacle into a visual benchmark of performance, projecting your persuasiveness as a manifestation of will with credible impact on the collective outcome?

Dănuţ 's team mates felt the taste of victory before having it, but they ran against an invisible wall called experience. They were able to identify a potential leader, but they couldn't play the game, they weren't able to follow it in the direction he set. Their average level of experience, their lack of practical abilities didn't allow them to adapt to the game style imposed by Dănuţ on the go. And on his own, he didn't have the power to change the final result.

The performance and success of a team depend both on the leader, as well as on the members of the team. They all must make and act in tandem: it's no use if a leader is very good if doesn't have anyone to work with. The reverse is also valid: it's useless if a weak leader has a very good team. Any disagreement or dissension between them will result in a failure, even if everyone had the best intentions.

You assert yourself as a core player on a united team when you manage to convey, through the intelligence of offensive play, that the stakes go beyond mere action and enter the logic of value and elite competition.