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Success lessons from Leicester FC

We now know that the champions for the popular English Premier League (EPL) are Leicester City Football Club. This is a professional football club that has no track record of winning big trophies at national or international levels. In fact, we know that in the last couple of decades, the EPL has mostly been dominated by Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea. If we extend the years further back, then we can throw in a fifth team in the name of Liverpool. Even if we extend furthermore, we will not find Leicester City FC.

In fact, this team was only recently promoted back to EPL after spending several years in the lower division. Such a dramatic story is worth noting and even more, we need to explore what lessons we can learn from this unique achievement. One clear lesson is that anyone can be number one. You, too, can be a champion in your chosen field.

What Leicester FC have achieved means you, too, need to identify your chosen activity where you want to shine. Leicester did not just become champions by simply being lucky. They planned for it and they worked consistently hard for it. What we read and hear is that Leicester trained hard and they were a very united team. Beyond everything else, they have a manager who had a good plan which worked. He believed that they could win the league and he made his team believe the same. Without belief, it is not possible at all to win something of the magnitude of the English Premier League that Leicester won.

In your life, too, you need a good plan that you execute with total accuracy. In addition, you need to believe 100 percent that you will win. If you have people supporting you, you need to convince them to also believe like you. There should be no doubt or hesitation in anyone involved in the ‘project’.

From Leicester’s success, we also confirm the great principle that you don’t change that which is working. We know from the statistics shared from league season that Leicester FC changed the player formation very little, in fact, they had the least count of changes for the positions that players played. Basically, they played almost the same players each in his position. They only made 27 changes to the team throughout the season compared with an average of 95 changes for the clubs in EPL! For sure, this must have had the effect of each player became a great expert in his position. Imagine playing with a team that is full of professionals each a specialist in the position he plays. Plus, that the players get to know each other really well and they know how to coordinate themselves without having to learn too much about each other’s way of play during the competitive games.

It is also important to keep learning and changing or adapting as you keep implementing your plan. It is well known that Leicester City played a different game before Christmas as compared to the game they played after Christmas. In the first-half of the League, Leicester did not mind how much goals they conceded, provided the scored more goals. However, as the league progressed, they changed strategy. They tightened up their defence and began to allow very few goals in—and they scored less goals, making their wins now much narrower. You can argue that as time passed, their team was likely to tire and so they needed to play a lot more efficiently and less combatively. This strategy worked and produced the right results.

In your pursuits you, you need to keep learning, keep adapting and evolving, in response to the changing environment. Do not keep your plans static. Make them dynamic! Good luck as you reflect on the unexpected crowning of Leicester City as Champions of the English Premier League! n

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