����ֱ��

I have a friend in London who is irredeemably posh and takes great delight in mocking football fans, who he deems to be classless oiks — including me, and we’re supposed to be friends.

When our vociferous enthusiasm becomes too much for him, he will drawl, in that effortlessly superior manner that only the genuine English upper classes can pull off with any conviction: “There are only three sports, doncha know — huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’. Anythin’ else is merely a pastime.”

I thought of him last week when, like tens of millions of others worldwide, I watched, transfixed, what was arguably the football match of the season and, certainly, one half of the greatest semifinal tie ever played.

To summarize: the Italian team Inter and Barcelona of Spain were playing for a place in the European Champions League final. Having drawn the first leg in the Catalan city 3-3, they lined up level for the second leg in Milan. Roared on by a passionate crowd at the San Siro stadium, Inter were 2-0 up at half time. Then Barca scored. Then they scored again. And in the 87th minute they took the lead. Game over, we thought — until three minutes into stoppage time, when Inter equalized, taking the tie into extra time. After nine of the 30 extra minutes, Inter scored what turned out to be the winner.

That brief summary of the goals does not begin to encompass the drama, the tension, the thrills or the skills and talent on display in a match that no one who saw it will ever forget. In the famous words of Sir Alex Ferguson, whose Manchester United team were 1-0 down and being outplayed by Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final but scored in the 91st and 93rd minutes to win the trophy: “Football, bloody hell!”

Sport has much to teach us — about how to run a business, how to organize a government and life in general

Ross Anderson

Now, if I lost you at the first mention of “football” and you’re still here only out of politeness, I urge you to stick with it. Sport in general, and football in particular, has much to teach us — about how to run a business, how to organize a government and life in general. These lessons fall into three main categories: whether it is preferable to have a strong, coherent team or a group of stellar individuals; whether youth trumps experience or the other way round; and, finally, no matter the tribulations life throws at you, never give up.

In last week’s match, Barcelona were replete with stunning individual talent that Inter could not match. Instead, the Italians relied on teamwork — covering for each other, standing in when someone slipped up, operating as a well-schooled unit. That the more unified team won would have come as no surprise to business analysts, who often advise companies that rating staff by personal individual assessments and rewarding individual high performers is a mistake, as it overlooks the value of teamwork and collaboration.

One of them, Ryan Stoltz of the Workhuman company, observes: “Human relationships and collaboration drive true success. Innovation, learning and growth now happen at the team level within organizations. Emphasizing team performance over individual tasks ... nurtures a thriving, innovative workplace.”

As for youth, Barcelona had that in abundance last week. With an average age of 23.4 years, they are the youngest team in the Spanish league, and the youngest squad Barca have ever taken into the Champions League. If you have not yet heard of their 17-year-old prodigy Lamine Yamal, you will soon. Pedri, their midfield maestro, who controls a football match the way Daniel Barenboim conducts an orchestra, is 22.

Inter, on the other hand, have the oldest squad in the Champions League — average age 26.8, and many of the younger players have seen little or no game time. Francesco Acerbi, who scored the dramatic 93rd-minute equalizer last week, is 37 — an age at which most elite footballers have long ago considered retirement or a move to the less demanding environs of US Major League Soccer. What Inter’s squad has, in place of youth, is a wealth of experience in dealing with every twist and turn of a top-level football match: there is no adversity they have not encountered before.

Again, that the more experienced team won will not have surprised business analysts. Many employers prefer to hire younger staff, who they believe are easier to mold into what the company requires and are better acquainted with technology. As the marketing guru Steve McComish points out, businesses that want to connect with Gen Z consumers may be attracted to staff from the same demographic and wear their youth as a badge of pride. However, he adds: “There really is no substitute for someone who has done the job for 20-plus years. They have literally seen every situation that can develop and will take every possible scenario in their stride. They know exactly what works, and what flops.”

His advice is: “Smart young leaders surround themselves not only with teammates their own age and younger, but also with experienced older professionals who can come in at board level and offer them the benefit of their hard-won wisdom and experience.”

In place of youth, Inter have a wealth of experience: there is no adversity they have not encountered before

Ross Anderson

Where McComish errs, I think, is his assumption that this is a binary choice and that youth and experience are mutually exclusive. With a bachelor’s degree, a Ph.D. and a master’s, it’s quite possible to be approaching the age of 30 without ever having had an actual job: such candidates have proved they can pass exams, but little else. Until recently, job recruiters tended to examine educational qualifications before considering any other factors. This used to be known as the “paper ceiling” — smart young jobseekers who had chosen to join the workforce straight from school, benefiting from on-the-job training and gaining invaluable career experience, were denied advancement because they lacked a university degree.

Not any more: research in the UK last year showed a 14.2 percent increase between 2021 and 2024 in the share of job postings that did not require a degree, while a study by recruiter Hays in 2023 found that nearly half of employers believed it was “no longer important that a job applicant has a degree.”

IBM, Google and the consultancies McKinsey and Accenture are among 50 US companies backing a campaign to “tear the paper ceiling.” It wants to encourage job candidates with real-world experience, military service, community college courses and training schemes — those who face “the invisible barrier that comes at every turn for workers without a bachelor’s degree … no alumni network, biased algorithms, degree screens, stereotypes and misconceptions.”

As for our final lesson, let us return to Acerbi, the veteran defender who scored Inter’s dramatic equalizer last week. Always viewed as a journeyman, Acerbi found it difficult to settle and has had 14 separate spells with 10 different clubs. In 2012, when his beloved father died, Acerbi suffered clinical depression and became addicted to alcohol, for which he received treatment and therapy. In 2013, he received a diagnosis of testicular cancer and had surgery to remove the tumor. When he returned to the game, Acerbi failed a doping test. He denied having taken performance-enhancing drugs and it emerged that his irregular hormone levels were caused by the return of the cancer. He underwent two months of chemotherapy at the start of 2014.

That is enough adversity for two lifetimes, let alone one. But on May 31, Acerbi will run on to the pitch for Inter at the Allianz Arena in Munich to compete against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final — the pinnacle of any elite European footballer’s career: because he never gave up.

• Ross Anderson is associate editor of Arab News.