The Roman philosopher Seneca once said, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Now, according to some, that quote is saying that the difference between the lucky and the unlucky is merely a matter of perspective: some people believe they make their own luck, and so they do.
We would like to hear what those people would have to say about Andrew Cassidy.
There is nothing in that video that would immediately suggest that Andrew is lucky: he’s overweight, he’s a middle-aged man playing with a soccer ball by himself, he’s being filmed and laughed at by a group of friends who may or may not be intoxicated. It is a valid question to wonder if Andrew could even afford a phone with a camera when this video was taken. The whole scenario seems to fall in line with the age old tradition of the privileged preying on the needy for entertainment.
But then you find out that this video has over 3,000,000 views on YouTube; that Andrew Cassidy is known around his town as “The Welsh Maradona”; that that video made him an Internet celebrity; that the organizers of the World Freestyle Football Championships invited him to star in their opening ceremony in Dubai; that those same organizers flew him to Dubai first class, put him up in a world-class hotel, and paid him £200 a day during his stay; that a spokesman for said organizers described Andrew as “a sensation — you can’t take your eyes off him.”
Delving into Andrew’s past only muddles the situation further. It turns out that, at the time of this video, Andrew had been unemployed for 10 years. Furthermore, he only started practicing his skills with the soccer ball after he learned about the death of a dear friend, and needed something to take his mind off of the pain.
All of this makes us think that Andrew Cassidy is the luckiest man in the world; prepared by a friend’s fateful death to take advantage of a glorified joke of an opportunity, which led to him becoming a pop culture icon, if only for a moment.
Just look at him when he’s juggling! He’s on Cloud 9:
When he does his thing, there is only him and the soccer ball. He could probably perform at halftime of the Super Bowl and not break a sweat. He would still be awkward if forced to answer some questions, but no more or no less. He found his calling, or, as is more often the case, his calling found him.
The first time Andrew even found out he was famous was a few weeks after the video was uploaded. “[A reporter came to my door and] said I’d gone viral,” Andrew said. “I didn’t even know what that meant, I though it was some sort of disease.”
He is the exception to the belief that the difference between being lucky and unlucky is a matter of perspective - that people make their own luck - because all of his luck was made for him. And that, as far as we are concerned, makes Andrew Cassidy the luckiest man in the world.
