7-1!! How Did Germany Do It?

By Shlomo  Maital

Muller

Thomas Muller

OK,  World Cup soccer (football) fans!  How did Germany win 7-1 over a strong Brazilian team?   Ask veteran sportswriter George Vecsey, who for decades has given us the inside story of what really goes on in baseball, and other sports.

    It starts with failure. Great achievement OFTEN, perhaps even always, starts with some sort of failure. The German football team failed to advance beyond the group stage of the European championship – a huge trauma.  This generated a development plan.  In 366 districts of Germany, youngsters were screened, examined and picked for further training.  The system produced an outstanding wave of players now in their mid-20s.   One of them is Thomas Muller, the creative star who seems to be everywhere, and who combines the two key elements of creativity:  discovery (being in unexpected surprising places, figuring out just WHERE to be), and delivery, the ability to convert chances into goals, like his amazing goal scored from a volley, against Brazil, after a corner kick reached his right foot.

   Want to be a world champion?  Find talent (including your own).  Develop it patiently.  Be focused.  Show your people the vision.  And work very very very hard.  Vecsey quotes British star Gary Lineker,  “football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.”

    Let’s learn from them.  Not everyone is thrilled by the 7-1 triumph.  But all of us can learn from it, about how creativity and discipline can unite to achieve true greatness.