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 environment more conducive to his development, he could really take off.

So we did.

Through our network, we secured him a place at a top youth football club in Colorado, where he would live with a host family, compete in some of the best youth tournaments in North America and even receive regular exposure to an MLS club.

And then, incredibly, we got Coca-Cola India to sponsor the entire international experience.

We thought we had cracked the code.

This kid was going to Colorado. He was going to train every day in a serious football environment. He was going to play against some of the best young players in North America. He was going to be exposed to an MLS club.

We were basically sending India's next superstar to football university.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well...

Quite a lot, actually.

We thought we had prepared for everything

We took the preparation seriously.

He stayed with us at our office in Delhi NCR for a week before leaving so that we could work with him and help him prepare.

We found him a great host family.

We made sure the club was ready for him and understood his footballing needs.

We made sure he had enough money.

We tried to think through the practicalities of living thousands of kilometres away from home.

When he eventually left Delhi for Denver, we felt a bit like proud parents sending their child off to university.

We were emotional.

We were excited.

And, most importantly, we felt like we had done everything possible to set him up for success.

Then, a few weeks into the trip, we got the call.

He wanted to come home.

What!?

How could this be?

He was training every day. He was already getting match time. He was at a good club. The opportunity was objectively fantastic.

What had we missed?

As it turned out, we had missed something enormous.

We had prepared him for football. We hadn't fully prepared him for life.

The invisible opponent

Colorado is really cold in the winter.

I mean really cold.

This was a teenager who had grown up in India and suddenly found himself expected to train, compete and function at a high level while surrounded by cold weather pretty much all the time.

Then there was language.

His English was decent, but he wasn't a natural English speaker. The other players were. That seemingly small difference can become much bigger when you're a teenager trying to establish yourself in a new dressing room, make friends and prove yourself on the field.

Then came food.

He was accustomed to rice, chapatis, spicy meat and vegetables.

Suddenly, there were sandwiches, grilled chicken, meatloaf, hotdogs and all the other things that may be perfectly normal to someone who grew up in America but feel very different when you have grown up eating Indian food every day.

Then there was the host family.

They were wonderful people, but the social expectations were different.

In India, particularly for boys growing up in relatively comfortable families, there is often a huge support system around you. Parents, grandparents, relatives, domestic help, neighbours, friends—someone is usually around to help with the little things.

In suburban America, a 16- or 17-year-old is expected to be considerably more self-sufficient.

You figure things out.

You make your own food.

You ask for what you need.

You manage yourself.

And by 18, you're often expected to be heading out into the world on your own.

That can be a fairly significant cultural adjustment for an Indian teenager who has grown up in a very different environment.

And then there was perhaps the biggest thing of all.

He was alone.

There was nobody from India with whom he could share the experience.

Nobody who understood the food.

Nobody who understood the weather.

Nobody who understood the little cultural differences without having to explain them.

Nobody who could simply sit with him and say, "Yeah, this is weird."

He was, quite literally, a fish out of water.

After a few months, he came home.

And he was happy.

He was back with his friends, teammates, family and familiar surroundings.

Everyone who knew about his American adventure was shocked that he had chosen to return.

But after spending so much time talking to him during the experience, we understood.

And, more importantly, we learned.

Fast forward a decade or so...

I recently got to experience a much smaller—and considerably less consequential—version of the same lesson.

This time, I wasn't sending a young footballer to America.

I was taking my eight-month-old daughter to the UK.

My wife, Avantika, and I had taken our darling daughter, Leela, to the UK for a holiday. It was her first international trip and, naturally, we approached it with the calm, measured confidence of two experienced adults who had absolutely no idea what they were doing.

We prepared.

We got all the documentation sorted.

Or so we thought.

My wife is Indian. Leela is a US citizen who was born in India and had never left the country. So there was a considerable amount of paperwork involved just to convince various governments that we were, in fact, allowed to take our own baby on holiday.

We thought we had nailed it.

Then, at Mumbai airport, we discovered that US citizens needed to complete a new online form before travelling to the UK.

Excellent.

Nothing like discovering an important immigration requirement while standing at an airport with an eight-month-old baby.

Eventually, we got it done.

We boarded the flight.

We had even paid extra for seats with a bassinet.

This was going to be easy.

Except the bassinet was apparently designed for a baby approximately the size of a large loaf of bread.

Leela was not impressed.

So instead of peacefully sleeping for ten hours while we enjoyed a movie and a glass of something cold, we spent most of the flight walking up and down the aircraft trying desperately to keep her entertained.

The other passengers probably knew us by name by the time we landed.

Welcome to London

Then came London.

And this is where the parallels with our young footballer in Colorado started to become more obvious to me.

We had done everything we could to prepare.

Our family had organised things beautifully.

We had a comfortable home to stay in.

We had the baby equipment Leela liked.

We had her favourite toys.

We had her formula.

We had warm clothes.

We had medicine.

We had a new baby carrier.

We had each other and family around us.

We had English.

We had money.

We had experience travelling.

And, most importantly, we were on holiday.

We weren't there to perform at the highest level of our professions.

We were there to relax.

And yet...

We struggled.

The jet lag hit us.

The new bed affected our sleep.

The room was different.

The temperature was different.

The space was different.

Our entire daily rhythm was different.

For the first few days, the three of us were basically walking around London in a collective zombie state, trying to enjoy ourselves while our bodies were still somewhere over the Arabian Sea.

And we did have an incredible time.

The trip was full of wonderful experiences and memories.

But we were not at our best.

We were out of our element.

Apparently, English babies have their act together

One of the funniest things I noticed was how well-behaved all the English babies seemed to be.

We would see babies peacefully sitting or sleeping in their prams while our little Leela was crying, wriggling, fussing or generally making her presence known.

I found myself thinking:

"Why can't our baby do that?"

Which, of course, is ridiculous.

Because we were comparing an Indian baby who had been transported halfway across the world with babies who were living in their own environment, sleeping in familiar surroundings and experiencing their normal routines.

But that's exactly what happens.

We see the outcome without seeing the environment that produced it.

And that got me thinking about athletes.

It's not just the weather

London is a walking city.

In India, we're used to relatively inexpensive and accessible Uber rides.

In London, suddenly, we're walking everywhere with an eight-month-old strapped to one of our chests.

Then there was the absence of the support system we're accustomed to having in India.

At home, we're fortunate to have support from a nanny, maid and cook.

In London?

That was us.

We cooked.

We cleaned.

We organised.

We looked after the baby.

We cleaned again.

Then we cooked again.

We were used to eating home-cooked Indian food. Suddenly, we were eating out much more and consuming a lot more processed food, and our stomachs began filing formal complaints.

The bed was smaller than what we were used to. I actually fell off it a couple of times.

The weather was beautiful one minute and rainy, windy and cold the next.

Eventually, all three of us got a cold.

And the interesting thing was that none of these things existed independently.

They compounded each other.

Jet lag meant we didn't sleep properly.

Not sleeping made the unfamiliar bed and room feel worse.

That made us more tired.

Being tired made walking around London with a baby more exhausting.

Being exhausted made the food and stomach issues feel worse.

And so on.

It became a little downward spiral.

None of these things, individually, were a big deal.

Together, they changed how we functioned.

And that's the point

So here's the connection I keep coming back to.

That young Indian footballer travelling from Delhi to Denver had to deal with a completely new climate, culture, language, food, social environment and support system.

We had to deal with jet lag, different weather, different food, different routines, a smaller bed and a slightly less convenient transportation system.

Obviously, these situations are not remotely equivalent in terms of seriousness.

But the underlying principle is the same.

Environment affects performance.

And sometimes, much more than we realise.

My wife and I are seasoned travellers.

We speak English fluently.

We were travelling to a country where English is the primary language.

We were financially comfortable.

We had family there.

We had a comfortable home with two bathrooms.

We were on holiday.

We had no expectation of having to train twice a day and prove ourselves to a coach.

And yet, we weren't at our best.

Not as parents.

Not physically.

Not mentally.

And even in some of the professional meetings I had scheduled while I was there, I could feel the impact.

Now imagine being 16 or 17 years old.

Imagine leaving India for the first time.

Imagine not speaking the local language confidently.

Imagine being unfamiliar with the food.

Imagine living through a winter you've never experienced.

Imagine entering a new dressing room where everyone else already knows each other.

Imagine having no family nearby.

And then imagine having your parents, your agent, your club and perhaps an entire country expecting you to succeed because you've been labelled "the next big thing."

Suddenly, the football might be the easy part.

The lesson for sport

I think this is something we need to take much more seriously as sports management professionals, coaches, clubs, federations and family members of athletes.

When we move athletes across borders, we tend to focus on the obvious things.

Where will they train?

Who will coach them?

What level will they compete at?

Where will they live?

What facilities will they have?

How much will it cost?

All important questions.

But we also need to ask:

How will they feel?

How will they eat?

How will they communicate?

How will they make friends?

How will they cope with the weather?

Who will they call when they have a terrible day?

Who will understand what they're going through without needing a 30-minute explanation?

What happens when the excitement of being in a new country wears off and the reality of living there begins?

And perhaps most importantly:

How long do we give them to find their rhythm?

Because the assumption that a player will arrive in a new country and immediately perform at their best simply because the football environment is better is flawed.

The human being has to adapt before the athlete can fully perform.

That adaptation takes time.

It takes support.

It takes patience.

And sometimes, it takes a few terrible meals, some sleepless nights and a lot of walking around with a baby strapped to your chest to really understand it.

I've spent much of my career helping athletes and sports organisations navigate opportunities across borders.

I used to think the biggest challenge was getting the athlete into the right environment.

I now think that's only half the job.

The real challenge is helping them become comfortable enough in that environment to perform.

Because when we talk about developing athletes, we often talk about talent, coaching, competition, facilities and exposure.

We should also talk about climate.

We should talk about culture.

We should talk about loneliness.

We should talk about pressure.

We should talk about food.

We should talk about sleep.

We should talk about the thousand tiny things that make someone feel like they belong.

Because ultimately, whether it's a teenage footballer in Colorado or a sleep-deprived family pushing a pram through London, the lesson is remarkably similar:

You can prepare the athlete for the game.

But if you don't prepare the human being for the environment, and help them learn how to manage themselves when things get tough, the game may never get the best version of them.