Best lesson learned: Win as a team

By THOMAS HUKAHU
IT is now the end of the year, 2018.
It is time to make a cup of coffee or tea, take a chair out of the house and place it under a shady tree, or take a walk along a beach or park, relax and review the year.
I am sure, you have a list of achievements.
Those are your blessings, so, count them “one by one”, as the Christian hymn urges believers to do so – and say a prayer of thanks.
Of course, there will be the awful moments too, and may not be good to dwell on.
Thank God for the comfort and strength given in those times too.
In all these though, the good and bad, lessons should be learned.
And now my question: What is your best lesson learned this year?
Mine comes from sports, from the top football (soccer) tournament in the world.
But before I turn to that, let me remind you that the biggest achievement for Papua New Guinea in sports this year was the sterling performance by three young athletes in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
I learned from those athletes too.

Baru, Toua and Kari: The star athletes
In April, PNG weightlifters, Morea Baru (62kg), Dika Toua (53kg) and Steven Kari (94kg) made history for the nation.
Baru and Toua each won silver in the Gold Coast Games and Kari tidied up everything by winning gold.
Toua and Kari went into the Gold Coast tournament as defending champions, having each won gold in the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, and setting a record for PNG too for having two golds in one tournament.
This year, my lenses however were focused on the small man, Baru.
In the 2014 Glasgow Games, Baru was placed fourth. (I was the press attaché for Team PNG in Glasgow then and reported on our other teams’ performances for media outlets back here.)
Although, he did not say it, the next couple of months showed that Baru wanted to be on the podium for the medal in the Gold Coast Games because he just walked over everyone in his division in the 2015 Pacific Games, including the Samoan who won bronze in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
In 2016, Baru was the best performing PNG athlete in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he was placed sixth in his category.
In this year’s Commonwealth Games, I was touting Baru for the gold in his category.
Unfortunately, he missed out on that and managed a silver, which is in itself a stellar achievement for the 28-year-old athlete who lives and trains in New Caledonia.
(My wish now for all three lifters is to do better in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and set another record for PNG.)
Here is the lesson I learned from Baru: You may not be on the podium now, but in four years’ time you could be on stage with a prize if you are willing to put in the effort, make sacrifices and be consistent with your training.

Learning from the football pitch
This year, I also learned many things from Les Bleus (The Blues), the French men’s football team, participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Moscow, Russia.
You know the news: Les Bleus beat Croatia in the grand final 4-2 to take home the prized trophy exactly 20 years after they lifted it in Paris in 1998.
It was history too for their manager Didier Deschamps, who captained the French team in 1998.
The remainder of this article will be on my observation of Les Bleus’ performance and lessons learned from them, lessons that are not useful in sports only but can be applied to any activity or venture where teamwork and related concepts are needed.
Our sports teams, classes of students in schools or employees in business firms can learn something from the most successful team in football this year.

A story got me interested in 1999
For any boy growing up in East and West Sepik, Madang or Morobe, football is the game that is played in the village and in school during breaks.
And I believe, those of us who started juggling the ball back in the 1970s and 1980s admired the Brazilians, particularly Edson Arantes do Nascimento, most commonly known as Pelé. He was the standard in football, the yardstick that any football enthusiast would use to measure the skills of a player with.
Hence I was a Brazilian fan for all those years until the late 1990s.
It was in 1999 that I read a news story that mentioned the capabilities of Zinedine Zidane, the midfield maestro of Les Bleus in 1998 FIFA World Cup.
(That article may have also influenced me in wishing to write articles on sports, or related to such, like this one that you are reading.)
The article described Zidane as someone “who can see the holes in the opponents’ defence before they appear”.
As one who had played as a back and midfielder in my teens and 20s, I could tell that that description is fitting for a master midfielder.
As playmaker, the midfielder (also known as half-back) takes the ball from the defence line and starts the attack strategy. A good midfielder knows exactly what to do with the ball given the positions of his players and those in the opposition.
He can move the ball to the left side of the field to take the attention of the opponents towards that side before quickly switching play to the right – he anticipates how the opposition will react and knows where to push the ball through emerging holes in the opposition’s defence for his strikers.
I did not watch the matches in the 1998 World Cup though and could not tell how good Zidane was.

At the 2002 tournament and afterwards
When the 2002 World Cup tournament started, I was now supporting Brazil and France.
However, France drew one and lost two of their group matches and did not advance to the finals. Zidane was reported to have carried an injury into the tournament and that could have been the reason for France’s lacklustre performance then.
It was becoming apparent that Zidane was the key playmaker in the team. His absence created a noticeable void in the team.
(In that 2002 tournament, Brazil beat Germany in the final 2-0.)
In the 2006 competition, France, with its Golden Generation, including Zidane, got through to the finals and into the grand final.
Without injuries now, Zinedine’s skills dazzled the world. He was a maestro – even at the age of 33.
When they played Brazil, the World Champions in the quarterfinal, Les Bleus made them (with playmaker Ronaldhino) look rather amateurish and beat them 1-0.
However, sadly, in the grand final match against Italy, Zinedine’s notorious head-butting incident had him sent off.
Italian back Marco Materazzi reportedly had whispered something bad to Zinedine that that caused the Frenchman to react unprofessionally.
Whether Materrazi’s comments were calculated or not, it sent off France’s principal motivator and his team’s morale slumped.
The two teams were locked 1-1, even into extra-time, however Italy beat France 5-3 in penalty shootouts.
For us, Les Bleus fans, it was a disaster.

My view: French backs won the 2018 games
During this year’s World Cup, commentators said that France had the youngest team, which included teen-scoring machine Kylian Mbappé.
The youth in the team was a great advantage – they listened to coach Deschamps and did what was expected of them.
In the grand final, they had a teenager Mbappé, while all were in their 20s, except for captain and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris (aged 31), midfielders Blaise Matuidi (31) and N’golo Kanté (36), and Chelsea striker Olivier Girou (32).
I stated in social media, saying Les Bleus won because of their backline. Benjamin Parvard, on the right, with centres, Samuel Umtiti and Raphael Varane and Lucas Hernandez, on the left, were remarkable.
They were aptly supported by defending midfielder, diminutive N’Golo Kanté.
Someone who read my post said “it was teamwork that got Les Blues to win”.
He is correct.
However, the point I was making was Les Bleus had its backs doing a marvellous job in not just defending their goalmouth against the best forwards in the world, including Lionel Messi of Argentina. They were also running the ball up the flanks in attack, backing up play during attack and being key players during their set-piece plays when free kicks were taken near their opponents’ goalmouth.
Of the four backs, Hernandez was the only one who did not score any goal in this tournament.
Umtiti and Varane scored from headers from set-piece plays and Pavard scored a blazer against Argentina in their 4-3 win from outside the penalty box on the right side pouncing on a ball shot in from the left by defender-cum-attacker Hernandez.
The goal by Pavard was said to be one of the best goals of the tournament.
The point is this: France had its top attackers like Girou, Antoine Griezmann and Paul Pogba, the midfielder, but they were all watched closely by defenders of other teams.
It was the attack from Les Bleus’ backs that caught the other teams’ defenders off guard – they were expecting Girou and Griezmann to score but the goals came from players coming up from the back.
Brazilian supporters were betting their luck on Neymar Junior to win the cup for them, Argentinian fans did the same with Messi and Portuguese fans did for Cristiano Ronaldo, but all those high-profiled strikers were closely watched by all the backs in other teams.
France did it differently.
They knew their forwards would be watched, so they used their backs to support their forwards and together they struck as a team.
The attack was not a one-man show, it was a team uniting in assault – and, it was effective.

Lessons learned from Les Bleus
The main lesson I learned from Team France was that they worked as a cohesive, united pack to accomplish their goals, as in working together in attack.
Their game was not a one-man or two-men show, it was a team effort.
In life, we can achieve a lot if we work as a team, and not attempt things on our own.
Another lesson learned from Les Bleus include their creativity in attack, as in having their backs coming up to the front for their set-piece plays.
It was not usual and most teams did not employ that tactic.
In life, we do not need to play the same kind of game as others – we must be creative and innovative.
Additionally, to me, it seemed that each and every player on Team France “wanted to win” – it was not just their fans and coach who wanted that, the players themselves wanted to win.
Whenever we work as a team (as in a sports team, class of students preparing for an exam or staff of a firm), everyone must have a common goal, and be excited about achieving that.
Each and every member of the team must want to win.
One last thing: At times, the young among us will become the stars in the team, not the old ones – and we must allow for that.
In the end, those young French stars, helped the team score goals.
High-profiled Girou had to play a low-key role while teenager Mbappé stole the show. But that is fine with Girou.
Together they won the tournament as a team.

• Thomas Hukahu is a freelance writer.