Posted by More from Bernardinho’s book…
He retells the story of a documentary about the 1994 World Cup winning football team. All players and coaches spoke of the importance of teamwork, unity and solidarity. But one quote stood out. When Roberto Baggio was preparing to take the last penalty of the shoot out with Brazil leading 3-2, Brazilian goalkeeper Tafarel hoped that Baggio would miss. His reasoning… if he saved the last penalty, people might consider him the only hero, where he was just one member of a team, all equally deserving of success.
Baggio hit over the crossbar and the whole team became heroes.
POSTSCRIPT
Baggio later got to do an ad celebrating the fact that despite the disappointment of missing that penalty he never lost confidence in his own ability and four years later in the next World Cup he took, and made, a decisive penalty. So you could say it turned out to be a win-win for everybody.
At Home On The Court 