Rory Delap's Special Skill

How A Footballer Personified Standing Out From The Crowd

“When I throw the perfect ball, it's impossible to defend.”

– Rory Delap

In competitive fields it’s extremely hard to stand out. But if you can cultivate a special skill in a high value market, you can stand out by virtue of being unique.

There is no more competitive market in the world than professional football. There are no barriers to entry beyond being able to play and now with global scouting networks being so sophisticated, if you’re good enough then someone will find you, wherever you are on the globe.

Professional football is also cutthroat. Almost everyone is replaceable. If you’re not at the very top of the tree, like a Lionel Messi, then you’d better have a very good reason to be on the field.

Enter Irishman Rory Delap. Delap was capable enough as a footballer to play at international level and exist at mid-table Premier League teams for a decade. Yet he wasn’t a star and respectfully, he wasn’t a truly exceptional footballer. He wouldn’t have been on the cover of GQ magazine like David Beckham nor would he have been first on the team sheet. Reliability and versatility were his attributes and while they count for a lot, in an ever changing marketplace they’re relatively commonplace.

Nevertheless Rory Delap developed a special skill that struck terror into the hearts of top Premier League defenders. One that no one else had in their locker. One that made him a one of a kind asset to a team.

Rory Delap became unique. We’ll explain how and why he almost didn’t.

“It’s fantastic. I have never seen anything like this in my life. 10 metres outside midfield, this boy puts the ball inside the area. Maybe it’s not beautiful football but it’s effective.”

– Luiz Felipe Scolari - Brazil World Cup-winning coach

If you ask any football fan what comes to mind when they think of Rory Delap, they will remember that in a game played with the feet, he could throw a ball further than anyone else.

They won’t mention his international appearances for The Republic of Ireland or his hundreds of Premier League games for various teams. They will talk of his touchline torpedoes. They will mention the man with the Boeing throw-in, launching throws that could travel a distance of up to 40m (130ft) long and reach speeds of 50mph.

Why was this so effective?

His long, flat, pacy grenades gave his team a significant advantage because unlike free kicks, attacking players could not be offside from throw-ins. His team-mates could therefore stand right in front of the opposition team’s goal, obstructing the goalkeeper’s view if necessary.

Another tactical advantage of these throw-ins was their elevation. Unlike kicks from the floor like the corners or free-kicks that make up traditional set pieces, the throw-ins began their exocet-like trajectory from above Delap’s head six feet or so off the floor and were much more accurate and pin-point than anything that could be kicked by a boot. This was like throwing a dart at a target as opposed to kicking one.

The thing is that he always had this ability but it only came to the fore during his time at Stoke City. Why?

Delap would often launch long throws in training games at Southampton. While it was a bit of novelty at training, like the crossbar challenge or nutmegging someone for laughs, no one really took much notice until former England rugby head coach Clive Woodward arrived in a sporting director capacity.

Woodward made his name as an optimiser. He brought modern management techniques and outside experts including specialist coaches in fields as broad as visual performance, wrestling and nutrition into the previously staid England rugby environment. These innovations combined with a talented group of players culminated in their victory in the 2003 World Cup final.

Woodward saw something in Delap that they could use. The thing was he thought they could teach the whole team to throw like Delap, missing the opportunity to truly harness Delap’s superstrength.

There are two concepts that apply here.

Self Awareness, a part of the now popular Flow concept (Csikszentmihalyi), is almost self-explanatory. It involves knowledge of one’s self and of one’s qualities. Delap knew he could throw a long way. It was something he’d regularly do in training so it was clearly self-knowledge that he’d arrived at over the course of his career. The thing was, it wasn’t something he used in a game. It was something of a party piece. That was because he needed something else. He needed self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy stems from 3 sources; mastery experiences, vicarious experiences of social models and belief in success. Delap had no access to the first two given that he’d never tried his long throws in match situations, nor had he seen anyone else do so. He needed belief in success that hadn’t arrived yet. And while some of us have an inherent self belief that powers us through these plateaus, many of us require someone else to believe in us at the beginning, to turn the spark of possibility within us into a reality. Part of the self-efficacy model is receiving verbal persuasion from somebody else and in this instance, Woodward did that for Delap.

Never afraid of challenging convention in search of an edge, Woodward took the comedic and made it strategic. Even though his ideas never fully came to fruition at Southampton, he planted the seed in Delap’s mind that his long throw should not be confined to the training ground. Delap’s self-knowledge combined with self-efficacy and he was ready to deploy his superstrength. He knew he had a special skill. Now he believed he could use it.

Nevertheless it wasn't until Delap was transferred to Stoke City that his superstrength went from hidden in plain sight to truly weaponised. The same mucking about in training which had occurred at Southampton revealed Delap’s party trick to his new Stoke City team mates and the next day, manager Tony Pulis came in with a full suite of tactics to take advantage of their new secret weapon.

A team struggling for strategies to stay in the Premier League suddenly found one that they could practise, develop and master. In a development that was part Monty Python, part Moneyball, Stoke City had discovered an unused 1%, a seemingly marginal gain, that would take the league by storm and yield 14% of their goals. Statisticians hypothesised that Delap’s throws alone were worth six league points to Stoke - namely, the difference between automatic promotion and play-off places, or relegation and staying in the Premiership. The value of this in cold hard cash? Conservatively it was tens of millions. Whatever the exact numbers it’s no exaggeration to say that harnessing Delap’s superstrength contributed hugely to Stoke City’s Premier League survival. The Britannia Stadium became somewhere the very best teams would dare to tread and as soon as Rory Delap began his throw in ritual, star central defenders would begin to panic.

Like Delap launching from the sidelines in training sessions, how can you discover your own existing superstrength? Let’s reconsider Self Awareness and Self Efficacy but this time, let’s apply them to you.

What are you actually good at? Rory Delap was a junior javelin champion and belatedly found a way to incorporate that skill into his footballing arsenal. You may have an existing strength away from your workplace skills that is just waiting to be harnessed. The things you’re good at could seem irrelevant but consider that Delap became a unique footballing weapon by using his hands.

But again like Delap, you may not even realise that your strengths are useful. Self Efficacy derives in part from external persuasion. What do other people see in you?

What do people praise you for or ask you for help with? Even if you don’t feel especially confident or authoritative at that thing, it could well be a signpost to your superstrength.

Finally, Delap found out he was unusually good at throwing the ball by mucking around. When you investigate the backgrounds of elite athletes, so often there’s a small game or challenge that they became obsessed with because it felt like play. Investor and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant asks, "What feels like play to you, but looks like work to others?" So what do people praise you for or ask you for help with? Even if you don’t feel especially confident or authoritative at that thing, it could well be a signpost to your superstrength.

To sum up, you probably already have some sort of superstrength. Here are some questions to help you unearth it.

Practical and Actionable steps to take for the reader:

• -  Self-awareness arises from true self-enquiry.
  Is there something that you can do that you feel may be rare or even unique to you?

• -  Self-efficacy stems from someone recognising talent in you.
  Is there something that you can do that others know you for or ask for your help with?

• -  What you can do does not have to be obvious at first.

Do you find yourself focusing on one specific skill regardless of the situation?

- Delap was in essence a javelin thrower playing football.
Could you move one of your skills to another field where it’s uncommon?