Playing Above the Line

How do you transform a rabble of teenagers into a high performing team? Rather than teach them more soccer skills, this season I decided to teach them the one secret that has helped so many massively successful people. This is the story of how personal responsibility and playing above the line transformed this team's season... but it's a parable for our lives and our work. For many people the only memories of playing team sports are rough, tough and mean. This year I wanted much more than that for my team of 15 year olds. I wanted the experience of playing Soccer in this team to be as valuable as it was memorable. I wanted these young people to have a real experience of what it's like to work in an amazing team. To work in a team where they could be the best they were capable of personally and together. I wanted to teach them much more than just Soccer. I wanted to teach them what they could achieve when they chose greatness. And I wanted them to carry these lessons through what will be the most challenging years of their lives. Instead of teaching them more Soccer skills, I taught them teamwork and personal responsibility. And the result was extraordinary. This is the Story about a group of teenage Soccer players that went from very average results to extraordinary success and the one secret that changed their season. It's the story of an under 15's team, who two seasons prior to this story lost every single game on the entire season. Not most games... every. single. one. Last season the team managed to finish 5th out of 8 teams. A respectable turnaround from the previous season. But this year they won every game. They finished as Premiers with 15 points between them and the opposing team, won the Grand Final by 5 goals to 1, and became the champions of their age and division. The team won a legion of fans and the crowd they drew for their Grand Final game included onlookers from other teams, coaches from other clubs and fans from the senior teams that had no direct connection with them.