Lean and the Football World Cup

Well, the FIFA World Cup 2026 has come and gone, with Spain deservedly lifting the trophy for the second time. There were plenty of memorable moments, great goals, fantastic saves, smaller teams rising to the occasion, the inevitable controversial refereeing decisions, and enough opinions on social media to solve football forever. And as at the time of writing, the ructions within FIFA itself continue. But, I’m not here to talk about any of that.

I’m much more interested in the intersection of football and Lean.

Before we begin, I should probably confess that I’m not exactly writing from a position of footballing greatness. My football career began on the front lawn of the family home in New Zealand. Later, at secondary school, I had the honour of playing in both of our football teams. Admittedly, we only had two teams, and to make the first team you really only had to survive until Year Three of college. Many years later I attended Scotland versus New Zealand at Tynecastle in Edinburgh. The only game I’ve ever been to that I wasn’t playing in! The match finished 1–1, but what I remember most was discovering that away supporters were seated inside what looked remarkably like a cage. “A cage?” I remember thinking. “How civilised is this game?” Football had something of a crowd-control problem in those days. I never experienced anything remotely similar at the many rugby matches I’ve attended.

These days I happily watch both the European Championships and the World Cup. The more football I watch, the more it reminds me of chess. Players move around trying to pull opponents out of position and then—BANG!—the ball in the back of the net. Or not.

So where does Lean fit into all of this?

At the heart of Lean are two fundamental concepts:

• Continuous Improvement
• Respect for People

A successful football team needs both.

No team arrives at a World Cup, or any game, with one perfect plan, laminates it, hands it to the players and assumes everything will work exactly as expected. Opponents, as we know from our own experiences, have an annoying habit of doing their own thing. And players become tired, injuries happen, someone gets a card, the weather gets in the way, poor passes, someone forgets where they are supposed to be. Teams constantly observe what is happening, learn from it and adapt. That is Continuous Improvement. And it happens during training, over a game and throughout the season, i.e. all the time.

Respect for People is just as important. The coach may have the strategy, but the players are the ones actually dealing with the work, kicking or heading the ball, making tackles and saves. They see the spaces opening up. They experience the pressure. They spot problems long before anyone sitting in the stands. Their knowledge and skills matter.

Exactly the same applies in organisations. Senior managers usually have the strategic overview, but the people actually doing the work often know precisely where the process breaks down and how it could be improved. Lean succeeds when organisations genuinely listen to those people.

The Five Principles of Lean on the Football Pitch

The five principles of Lean fit football remarkably well.

Value

Lean teaches us that activity is not the same as value. Football teaches exactly the same lesson. A team can complete 700 passes, dominate possession and still lose 1–0. Value isn’t possession for possession’s sake. Value is creating chances. Value is scoring goals. Lots of them if you can. Value is also preventing the opposition from doing exactly the same thing.

Process (The Value Stream)

How does the ball move from the goalkeeper to a genuine scoring opportunity? Which passes contribute? Which simply move the problem sideways? Like every process, we should be looking for the simplest route from start to finish. The quickest, with the fewest passes. Preferably with the ball ending up in the opposition’s net, as many times as possible.

Flow

Good teams flow. The ball moves. The players move. Options appear before they’re needed. Poor flow is when a player receives the ball, looks up, looks down, turns around twice and eventually discovers everyone else has stopped moving.

Pull

A midfielder spots a teammate making a run into space and plays the pass because there is genuine demand. That’s pull. Launching the ball fifty metres towards a heavily marked striker and hoping divine intervention takes care of the rest is much closer to a push system. Pushing the ball onto someone else might get it away from you but it leaves them with the problem.

Perfection

No football team ever reaches perfection. Not even the great Brazilian team of 1970. The best teams simply get closer through continuous learning, practising, reviewing and improving.

The 8 Wastes – TIM WOODS on the Football Pitch

Watching football through Lean spectacles can be quite dangerous. Before long you find yourself spotting waste everywhere.

Transportation

Every pass moves the ball. Not every pass creates value. Passing the ball repeatedly across the defence, or even back to the goalkeeper, may keep possession, but if nothing improves it is simply transportation waste. The question isn’t, “Did the ball move?” The question is, “Did it move us closer to scoring?”

Inventory

A training session requires six footballs, yet twenty have been prepared. The remaining fourteen simply sit beside the pitch. Or perhaps inventory is players standing in areas of the pitch where they contribute little to the current phase of play. They’re available, but they’re not adding value.

Motion

The coach repeatedly walks back to the equipment store because cones, bibs and footballs weren’t organised before training began. On the pitch, players sprint enthusiastically in the wrong direction or repeatedly cover the same ground because the team has become disorganised. Lots of movement. Very little value.

Waiting

A striker makes an excellent run but waits because the midfielder hesitates before making the pass. The opportunity disappears. Waiting also occurs when nobody moves into space to receive a throw-in, leaving the player holding the ball wondering where everyone has gone.

Overproduction

Players complete ten warm-up laps even though three would have prepared them just as effectively. More work has been done than was actually required.

Overprocessing

A player performs four step-overs, two turns and several elaborate feints before making the simple pass that was available from the beginning. Looks good, but we’re not all Ronaldinho. Sometimes football tries far too hard to be clever. A simple pass often beats unnecessary complexity.

Defects

A defender under-hits a back pass and gifts possession to the opposition. The entire team must now work desperately to recover. Mistakes create rework, lots of busy activity trying to put things right. Exactly as they do in every organisation.

Skills

The team’s best free-kick specialist spends ninety minutes sitting on the bench. Or an experienced player spots a weakness in the opposition, but nobody asks for their opinion. Or perhaps the new player has not been given the skills necessary to compete at the required level. Lean reminds us that failing to use people’s knowledge and abilities, or placing people in roles without giving them the skills they need, is one of the greatest wastes of all.

But Context Matters

Of course, not every backward pass is waste. Sometimes moving backwards creates the space needed to move forwards. Lean is not about eliminating activity simply because it appears inefficient. It is about understanding whether the activity contributes to the purpose. Context always matters.

Daily Improvement Wins Championships

Daily Lean is rather like training between matches. Success doesn’t come from one spectacular improvement programme every four years. It comes from hundreds of small improvements repeated consistently over time. World Cups are often remembered for moments of individual brilliance. Teams usually succeed because they communicate well, understand their purpose, trust one another and continually improve. And because, every now and then, someone remembers to mark the unmarked player arriving at the back post.

That sounds remarkably like Lean to me.

Finally…

I watched far too many World Cup matches. Some nights there wasn’t much sleep. But I was convinced one of the teams I supported would eventually win. That sounds impressive until I admit I was supporting twenty-one countries. New Zealand and Scotland, naturally. The others? Australia, Brazil, Canada, DR Congo, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and the USA. Why? Simple. New Zealand is home. Scotland is where I now live. The others are countries where family and friends either live or come from.

So congratulations to Spain. Commiserations to everyone else.

And if any of the other countries would like to invite me over for a visit before the next World Cup, I’d be more than happy to reconsider my loyalties.

The World Cup only comes around every four years. Lean doesn’t.

Lean happens every day.

Every conversation.

Every process.

Every improvement.

Whether you’re trying to win the Football World Cup, or any game or competition, or simply make work a little easier tomorrow morning, the principles are remarkably similar.

Interested in finding out more about Lean, what we do and how we can help your organisation improve? Please get in touch.

Photo by Vikram TKV on Unsplash