With 6’ 6” and clumsy long legs, I was never good at football (and some other sports….) nor very football-enthusiastic, though our Dutch national team did -sometimes- do fairly well. As a General Manager I have been “on the road” in Africa for 20+ years and leadership philosophies have evolved in that time. I did keep an eye on the news regarding football teams, such as Bayern Munich (at some time with fellow-countryman Van Gaal as coach and Arjen Robben scoring), but the stories around it were sometimes more interesting than the actual football. I noticed some interesting similarities with “football” and managing hotels or companies. They both face challenges operating and managing a team to achieve a certain outcome. A  t the 2nd day of soft-opening a hotel in a large city in West-Africa, an owner without previous hotel-experience called the whole management team for an “Emergency Meeting“. His “Emergency”-issue was that he had a problem with the way the bedsheets were folded when making the beds. His most significant statement was however (he was, as many Africans, a big football-lover) “If the team doesn’t play well, you know what happens to the coach” whilst looking at me. I thought “but doesn’t have the coach have a clear influence on the team-strategy and choice of players……?” but kept silent.