The Invisible Opponent: What Football Taught Me About Culture, Climate and Parenthood
During my first few years working in football in India, there was a widely held belief in the industry that made a lot of sense on paper: If we send talented Indian footballers to better football countries, they will become better footballers. Simple, right? Take a talented teenage player, put them in Western Europe or North America, surround them with better facilities, stronger competition, better coaching and a more developed football culture, and—poof!—watch them become the next big thing. I believed it too. And a few years into my career, I had the opportunity to test that theory. There was a young player represented by my company, Libero Sports, who was considered one of the brightest prospects in Indian football. He was still a teenager, but he had already performed well for the youth national team and had impressed at several international tournaments. We thought he had something special. And, like many others in the industry, we believed that if we could move him to an environ...