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Has your boss ever forced you to sit through a mindless sermon on how to be a team player? Have you ever found yourself in a small, stuffy conference room, huddled around a piece of paper with the question: “Your colleague has B.O., how do you constructively make them aware of this”? Have you ever been made to attend a team-building workshop so replete with managerial bullsh*t that you wanted to take the group leader’s theoretical desert island plane crash and ram it so far down their throat that the palm trees were poking out of…. Okay, okay, you get the picture. Well, have you?
If so, this article is written especially for you. Using soccer and the power of statistical analysis as our tools (no, keep reading, trust us on this one), The18 has proved beyond a shadow of human doubt that there most definitely is an "I" in "TEAM."
So, the next time some do-gooding, conflict-resolving, failed-travelling salesman of a management guru asks you to guide your blind-folded colleague through an imaginary minefield in the name of team spirit, refute their incorrigible nonsense with the following gilt-edged facts:
#1. With a frankly mental 13 goals in six appearances this season, Cristiano Ronaldo has single-handedly scored more goals than the collective best efforts of 16 teams in La Liga, 16 teams in the Premier League, 16 teams in the Bundesliga and 18 teams in Serie A. Oh, and he’s played one game fewer as well.
#2. Paris Saint Germain have scored twice as many goals-per-game this season when Zlatan Ibrahimovic has started (five games started, four games absent). There’s a very good reason he has an ego the size of a blue whale.
#3. Chelsea’s Cesc Fabregas has single-handedly created as many goals (7) this season as his former team Arsenal have scraped together between them.
#4. AS Roma have won every league game they’ve played this season when keeper Morgan de Sanctis started in goal. They lost the only game when he didn’t.
#5. After seven Premier League games, Aston Villa have mustered just ten shots on target, the same number as 21-year old Saido Berahino has managed on his own for local rivals West Brom.
#6. Leo Messi has had a hand in two-thirds of Barcelona’s league goals this season, and half of all La Liga goals scored by the Catalans over the last three years.
#7. Last season, when Diego Costa was at Atletico Madrid, they scored 19 goals in their first seven games, with Costa contributing eight. This season, without Diego Costa, they’ve scored just 12.
#8. Last season, without Diego Costa, Chelsea scored just 10 goals in their first seven games. This season, with Diego Costa, they’ve scored 21. Costa himself has contributed nine. Money well spent.
So there you have it: proof beyond reasonable doubt that a gifted individual is no match for even the most motivated, collectively-aware and spiritually harmonized group. But perhaps you don’t agree: maybe you yourself are a manager, mentor or guru, or maybe you’re just graced with enough sense to recognize that these are lies, damned lies and, just a little beyond imbecilic nonsense, statistics. Whichever camp you fall into, here are a couple of stats to tilt the balance back in favor of the team:
#9. Currently sitting second in Serie A, Roma’s ten league goals have been scored by eight different players.
#10. In seven Premier League fixtures, Manchester United have used a total of 30 different players, with goalkeeper David de Gea the only ever-present. They are somehow fourth in the league.
There, doesn’t that feel better?
