la Argentina

I woke up very excited on Saturday morning to watch Argentina on its match against Iran.

Most people was expecting a very one-sided match since on paper Argentina is an agglomeration of talent, and Iran is fairly limited on its futbol skills.

With the passing of the time, it was clear that Iran was planning all along on defending with all their might, while Argentina takes the ball possession and the initiative to attack. But that was pretty frustrating for an Argentine fan. Iran placed pretty much 8-9 players on the defensive box, and was very organized and focused on blocking any attack from Argentina.

Second half starts, and not much really change, other than Iran actually had a few counters that resulted on chances to score, and that instilled fear because Argentina is known for its vulnerability on defense. When there was 20 min remaining, I just could not help but to stand and watch the match with a great sense of nervousness.

Argentina kept on attacking, crossing, passing, shooting, but it was pretty futile against the well organized defense of Iran.

Iran did a magnificent job, and they were close to get this historical draw, until the couple of minutes on the match when the best player and the captain of the team, Lionel Messi takes a shot from the outside of the box that went through all the defense and was able to beat the goalie. It was extraordinary, spectacular. I did not really have the energy to shout, but I just fell to the coach on relief that Argentina was able to get the 3-points from the match.

In this match, Argentina had to rely on its best player and leader to score. This might work on the short term, but it is clearly an issue on a longer run, as a team cannot just rely on a single player to win all the matches. They definitely need to work on many things if they want to go far in the tournament.

Reminds me of a Dragon Ball Z movie, where Goku says something like "if I don't do it, who will?" Basically, only Goku can save the day, similar to what Messi did.

This reminds me of an important lesson learned in leadership, about mentoring and empowering others. In my experience, I find it easier to do everything myself instead of teaching someone else and encourage them to do it. That will require more time investment, and probably I can do a better job myself. But this will just create a dependency on me in the functionality of the organization (fellowship, small group, etc) and so on the day that I leave, maybe no one else will be equipped to take over.

A brother taught me a while ago, that once we step into a leadership role, my first task is to find a replacement for myself, someone I can mentor.

Hence, the emphasis on leadership is to really not to do everything ourselves, but to encourage, guide, challenge, and equip others to be more effective to the cause that we are fighting for.