Want Success In Your Testing Career? Follow Iceland's Soccer Strategy

This is not an article about soccer.

It just uses soccer as a pretext.

Because good ideas are everywhere.

The European Soccer Championship is taking place these days.

It is in the quarterfinals phase with just 8 teams left:

1. Poland - Portugal
2. Wales - Belgium
3. Germany - Italy
4. France - Iceland

Iceland, in quarterfinals?

One of them is a big surprise: Iceland.

To get to quarterfinals, Iceland had 2 draws and 2 wins:

Iceland - Portugal 1 - 1

Iceland - Hungary 1 - 1

Iceland - Austria   2 - 1

Iceland - England 2 - 1

Iceland's opponents have the following populations:

Portugal - 10.4 million

Hungary - 9.8 million

Austria   - 8.4 million

England - 53 million

Iceland is one of the smallest countries in Europe with just above 300.000 people.

Soccer is popular in Iceland and was never too good.

It is a great achievement for the Iceland soccer team to qualify to the European Soccer Championship. 

To reach the quarterfinals of the championship is just incredible.

How did Iceland do it?

Was it a fluke, an accident, a stroke of luck?

Iceland beat England because his players were more motivated, had better execution and more desire.

But there is something else that explains the Iceland's success.

With such a low population, Iceland has a limited pool of players.

It has to do well with the players it has.

And that's what they did.





Iceland invested heavily in soccer

So they invested in training and more training.

Iceland took TV money from UEFA (Union of European Association) and invested it all in infrastructure, coaching and player development.

They build heated indoor fields all over the country (Iceland has very low temperature throughout the year and lots of snow) and helped hundreds of coaches get UEFA licenses.

There are so many UEFA licenses soccer coaches in Iceland that they have one for every 825 people.

Compare this with 1 for every 11.000 people in England.

There was no fluke in Iceland making it to the quarterfinal of the European championship.

The big  investment in soccer paid out big time.

Iceland no longer has a small soccer team in Europe but an important one.



And your point is, Alex?

As a tester or IT professional, if you want to have success in your career, you need to invest first.

Not in a house or in stocks.

Invest in yourself

Invest time, energy and money in your training.

Invest in growing your knowledge, your skills, your communication.

Expand your skills.

If you are a manual tester, learn programming and test automation.

If you know test automation, learn performance testing.

If you know performance testing, learn API testing.

Your knowledge and skills will mature as a result of the investment.

And the success will come shortly.

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Alex Siminiuc