Manufacturing Your Own Luck

There are 3 billion+ football (soccer) fans all over the world and many of them are divided in their opinion of how a draw in a cup competition is decided - penalties.

Many fans around the world think penalties is a cruel way to decide the result of two teams trying to battle it out - it’s a game decided by luck rather than skill.

But is that really the case? Sure, luck plays an important factor - but can players change the odds in their favor?

Let me start with a story from one of my favorite games -

No research left behind

In the 2012 Champions League Final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich, the Chelsea goalkeeper - Petr Cech faced 6 penalty kicks. He guessed the correct direction for each one of those kicks and saved two. Luck? Maybe. But maybe not.

In the documentary Generation Wembley, Bayern Munich striker Mario Gomez, shared his thoughts on taking one of those penalties.

“I put the ball down and look at Petr Cech, who’s standing there and he was a monster.

I put the ball down, turn around, and it was clear to me, I’m going to hit into one corner, powerfully. I have to hit it powerfully, otherwise he’ll get to it.

I walk back, turn around and think ‘No, he’ll save it’. On the way to the ball, I changed my mind and went for the other corner.”

Gomez choose the bottom right corner and hit the ball with power. Petr Cech guessed the right direction, but it was placed it very well. Mario Gomez got his goal. But there was more to his story -

“The mad thing about this story is: afterwards, I have doping control. Petr Cech is sitting with me at doping control. He’s completely shy, reserved, and he eventually says to me ‘Hey, what was with the penalty?’.

I look at him and say: ‘Eh?’.

Then he says to me, ‘You wanted to shoot towards the other corner first. You totally confused me. I knew you were going for the other corner.

He pretty much said what happened in me. That’s brutal. That made me realize again what a great goalkeeper he is, who also read the players and the players’ body language.”

Lucky guesses? Perhaps not. Petr Cech later revealed that they did extensive analytical prep for each one of the Bayern Munich strikers. They studied footage of their penalties from 5-7 years ago.

While Cech missed saving the penalty on Mario Gomez - he did save one from Bastian Schweinsteiger. Cech revealed that on his way to the penanlty, Schweinsteiger made a very unusual run. A run that Cech remembered Schweinsteiger had made in a friendly match against Salzburg years ago. Cech guessed the correct direction and saved the penalty. Extensive preparation increased Cech’s chances of saving the penalties.

The tell of the tongue

In the sport of tennis, a devastating serve can dominate matches. Boris Becker, nicknamed Boom Boom for his explosive power, once unleashed serves clocked at 156 mph - leaving legends like Andre Agassi utterly stumped. Becker’s serve was not only fast, but famously unpredictable due to his skillful placement and spin, giving him an edge in their early encounters. In their first three meetings, Andre lost all 3 games against Boris.

So what could Andre do to have a fighting chance against Boris?

He meticulously studied his serve.

“I watched tape after tape of him and and and stood across the net from him three different times.

Well, I watched tape after tape of him and and and stood across the net from him three different times. And I started to realize he had this weird tick with his tongue. I’m not kidding.

He would go into his his rocking motion, his his his same routine, and just as he was about to toss the ball, he would stick his tongue out, and it would either be right in the middle of his lip or it would be to the left corner of his lip So if he’s serving in the deuce court and he put his tongue in the middle of his lip, he was either serving up the middle or to the body. But if he put it to the side, he was going to serve out wide.”

And once he discovered this – he couldn’t let Boris know.

“The hardest part wasn’t wasn’t returning a serve. The hardest part was not letting him know that I knew this. So I had to resist the temptation of reading his serve for the majority of the match and choose the moments when I was going to use that information On a given point, to execute a shot that would allow me to break the match open.

I didn’t have a problem breaking his serve. I had a problem hiding the fact that I could break his serve at will because I just didn’t want him to keep that tongue in his mouth. I wanted it to keep coming out.”

Andre never revealed his little secret during his playing career. After retirement, he was hanging out with Boris at Oktoberfest and decided to spill the beans over a pint of beer -

“By the way, did you know you used to do this and give way to (your) serve?

He about fell fell off the chair.

And he says, I used to go home all the time and just tell my wife It’s like he reads my mind. And he said to me, little did I know, you were just reading my tongue. “

Till today this remains my favorite sports story.

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What often appears to us as a stroke of luck, or a flash of genius is upon closer inspection, the result of deep, often invisible preparation. You’ll notice that it’s not general preparation - it’s usually training/hard work with a very analytical/specific objective.

The greater the challenge ahead of you - the greater the preparation required. The process usually transforms a game of chance to a game of skill.

The key to remember is that luck is not a passive event that one should hope for, but an active advantage that one can manufacture.