What football teaches you about leadership: Edwin van der Sar on winning, losing and leading
A career at the highest level of football may look very different from running a business. For Edwin van der Sar, many of the principles stayed remarkably similar. Speaking at SuperReturn Europe, the former Manchester United, Ajax and Netherlands goalkeeper and former CEO of AFC Ajax reflected on resilience, teamwork, decision-making and the lessons he carried from more than two decades on the pitch into the boardroom.
Key takeaways
- Leadership does not mean being the most important person in the organisation.
- Strong teams can recover from individual mistakes and setbacks.
- Careers rarely develop in a straight line.
- Specialists around a leader matter as much in business as they do in sport.
- Preparation and data can improve decisions, but judgment still matters under pressure.
The CEO is not the star
Van der Sar’s view of leadership starts with a lesson from goalkeeping.
As a goalkeeper, he depended on the ten players in front of him to score the goals needed to win. When he moved into leadership at Ajax, he applied the same principle to the organisation around him.
Because I’m the CEO, I’m not the most important person.
Edwin van der Sar, Former goalkeeper for Manchester United, Ajax and The Netherlands, Former CEO of AFC Ajax
Commercial, finance, operations and other specialist functions became his equivalent of defenders: people with their own expertise and responsibilities who collectively made success possible.
He describes his directors in much the same way he once thought about the players around him. He did not need to be the best defender himself. He needed the right people in the right positions — and to be there when they required his support.
Careers do not move in straight lines
Van der Sar’s playing career included Champions League victories and some of European football’s biggest clubs. But progression was not always linear.
Everyone would like a career that continually moves upwards. In reality, setbacks arrive.
His advice is not to panic when they do. People develop at different speeds, and difficult periods do not have to determine what comes next.
Everybody has an own pace of developing. And that’s not only in the football world, that’s also in the business world.
Edwin van der Sar, Former goalkeeper for Manchester United, Ajax and The Netherlands, Former CEO of AFC Ajax
Preparation, data and judgment
Van der Sar saved the decisive penalty in Manchester United’s 2008 Champions League final victory. Today, he says the data available to elite players about their opponents is “second to none”.
But information does not remove uncertainty completely.
At the decisive moment, the player still has to interpret what is in front of them and act.
It is a lesson that transfers easily into business: better information can improve decision-making, but it does not eliminate judgment.
Van der Sar explored these themes further in a special SuperReturn Europe keynote on leadership, resilience and life after football.
