No one, other than Joachim Loew’s stylist, gave Germany much of a chance before the World Cup. It was a young team containing few players anyone outside the demi-monde of Munchengladbach, and Loew’s cardigan adviser, had ever heard of.
Once they’d starting banging in der goals and passing the ball to their own players – please note Signor Capello – that changed abruptly. And much was made of the team’s diversity by media commentators, especially when compared to previous German sides.
Of course diversity has been an HR growth industry in recent years and is seen by many HRers and Guardianistas as a “good thing”.
In sport though success is not about meeting quotas, it’s – most obviously in team sports – first and foremost about selecting the best players available for the job in hand, England excepted.
Thus it was noteworthy that the best team at the tournament, Spain, was the amongst the least diverse, setting aside regional differences. Some of the worst – think England and France – were amongst the most ethnically diverse teams in the 2010 World Cup, whereas another failure, Italy, wasn’t.
So a hard lesson from the playing field is that selection on merit is a necessary condition for success and that diversity is incidental to that.
Ralph Savage
Tim Evershed
John Charlton
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