How Great Teams Win

This day, last year. The passes were getting stuck in the grass. Men weren't getting forward. Chelsea was in the bottom half of the league table, out of the Champions League, and without a proper manager: The Special One had, finally, failed. Diego Costa was at his boorish worst; Eden Hazard, once boasting of CR7/Messi-like potential, had lost his way. Football at the Bridge sucked.

The summer was strange as it didn't bring an overhaul. No major buys, the new manager was a relatively unknown face, and there was little change in fortunes. The results went Win-Win-Win-Draw-Loss-Loss. The losses came against top quality teams, Liverpool and Arsenal. The 3-0 defeat at Arsenal on 24th September should have been much worse! But something changed that day...

Chelsea are now on a 13-Game Winning-Streak. Tactically, they changed from a 4-1-4-1 to a 3-4-3, and Conte has been hailed a tactical genius. I'll tell you what else he is: a genius a mental management.

The players are the same, the grounds are the same, the league and the fans are the same, but the game is so different. The animal in Costa has been unleashed; he roars as he smashes the back of the net. Hazard runs the wing-backs ragged, before cutting in and curling a delightful shot from outside the box. Matic and Cesc are back from the dead.

Can this change of fortune be attributed to tactics alone? Does 3-4-3 make Chelsea a winning team, or is Chelsea a winning team that plays 3-4-3? The energy at the bridge is unbelievably positive; right now, they could win playing 2-5-1-2 or 5-2-2-1 or some other phone-number type formation.

The tactical switch was essential to generate the positive vibe, to make good players believe they are great. And in that belief, the game has been won. Manchester United under Sir Alex was a team that excelled at winning the game in the mind long before they had their first attempt on goal. Great teams are built on incredible confidence, positive energy, and - of course - great amounts of hard-work and skill.

But energy is the key. Without it, you're nothing. With it, everything is suddenly within your reach. Here's hoping you unleash that energy in 2017. Cheers.

Leicester City's Title, A Lesson In Entrepreneurship

"Everybody knows Leicester is a Champion!"

Leicester City are champions of the Barclays Premier League, the most watched competition on the planet. And they've got by with a little help from their friends.

What makes this win magical, if not unique, is the tremendous 5000:1 odds that Leicester City faced. What makes this win unforgettable is that fact that Leicester City F.C. is much like a bootstrapped startup that went on to become a unicorn.

Ranieri - Never Give Up, Even At 64

For all those 30 under 30s, 40 under 40s, and impatient people expecting instant-gratification, there's a wise old fellow, who - at 64 - defied the common narrative: NO, AMBITION DOES NOT DIE WITH AGE. CREATIVITY DOESN'T DIE WITH AGE. GUTS DON'T DISAPPEAR WHEN YOU'RE FIFTY.

Those who watched Ranieri lift Chelsea into the Champions league, and then disappear into the European wilderness, to the point when he was kicked out of his job managing Greece, will understand the magnitude of his achievement. Perhaps he was lucky. But he worked hard for decades, manufacturing this luck.

Bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap.

You can buy ~25% of Cristiano Ronaldo with this amount

Leicester is functional. Lots of meat, little gravy. No fancy names, nothing flashy; just great work-ethic. Amazing strategy, and deadly execution.

This is what great teams are made of. Get help from family, friends... a little bit of jugaad. And then work with what you have. So what if you don't have an Oil-baron or a Sheikh funding you? If you have a vision, and a strategy to get there, you will find a way. With or without money. And you will learn a lot more with limited resources.

A team for a strategy. A strategy for a team.

Now that Leicester are champions, and Uber is a unicorn, there are case-studies to tell us how they got there. You can pay $200,000 to learn about these success stories if you want. And then you can do an Uber for X or a Leicester for Y. Or you can take your chances, and be your own Leicester City.

But case-studies teach you a thing or two, with the benefit of hindsight. Look at this infographic, for example:

Call it genius or call it dumb-luck, but Leicester knew themselves well and created tactics to maximise their strengths and cover their weaknesses. If you have a rockstar-developer, focus on creating a world-class product, but if you have a killer sales-force, your focus oughtn't be on the product as much as on an on-ground strategy to build your business.

There is no strategy that fits all; there is no team that fits all. But there is a strategy-team combo that will see you through to the finish. Find that combo.

Believe, always.

Believe in what you're doing. There is no place for doubt.

You can get there only if you've no doubt you can. Yes, you can tell the media and your friends another story. But when you're alone in your room, sitting on your bed, thinking about your startup, you cannot doubt it. There is a way forward, and nothing else.

If all else fails, find yourself a God: a religious deity, a preacher, silence, Elon Musk, or Science. Or get yourself some Thai Monks to help you out.

These are lessons in Sports and Entrepreneurship, and we - at Khelfie - cannot wait to put these into practice!

#Fearless #LCFC