Despite facing seemingly insurmountable odds going against a well-armed and trained warrior who happened to be a giant, David was fearless.

He brought only a slingshot and a pouch full of stones, against Goliath's colossal sword and the most obvious lesson often told is that size doesn't matter, it's the heart, courage and commitment that matters.

Truth is, for David to beat Goliath, he did a lot of SWOT analysis, which led to his victory, it took more than courage and commitment and the Nedbank cup match between Mamelodi Sundowns and NB La Masia was dubbed as the David vs Goliath kind of an encounter.

However, David was unable to cause an upset in this edition, as Sundowns thrashed La Masia 6-1 and although La Masia showed a lot of guts in the game, Sundowns was just too good for them.

A couple of lessons were learnt from observing the above-mentioned encounter.

Damion Morris, CPSM, in his article, 'A Dozen Ways To Beat Goliath', highlights a few key aspects:

 
1.Know your weaknesses: Knowing your strengths is easy but knowing your weaknesses will allow you to stay nimble and pivot when taking on Goliath.

2.Don't try to be Goliath: Study your opponent, learn their moves and formations, but don't try to be just like them because if you try to copy their winning formula, how will you beat them? You must take advantage of your own strength, not someone else's.

3.Trade space for time: Retreat in the face of a stronger enemy is not a sign of weakness, but of strength, by resisting the temptation to respond to an aggressor, you buy yourself valuable time to develop, get stronger (in football it's called defending in mid or low block).

According to Sun Tzu, in his book, 'The Art of War', the first rule of war is to survive.

As an underdog, the team needs to make sure that it stays longer in the match without conceding a goal.

Reaching halftime with a 0-0 scoreline is in line with a good survival strategy because the aim would be to get a goal from a counter-attack, set piece or take the match to the lottery of a penalty shoot-out.

Tzu also states that, deception is a tool, one has to keep the enemy guessing and deceive them as much as possible.

It seems as if one other thing that coach Rulani Mokwena has learnt from Pep Guardiola is singing praises of the opposing coach's style of play, a deceptive tool to lull him into a false state of security.

Building up to the La Masia vs Mamelodi Sundowns match, Mokwena had this to say about coach Daine Klate, "I look at the team  and when I watched La Masia play I can already see the stamp of a coach and they do quite a lot of very good things and whether it's Virgil Vries in goals or it's Du Plessis Allesandro with a left foot, it's the same type of skims in the build-up".

Come match day, he gave him 6-1, Guardiola is the master of deception, he uses this tool very effectively, which gives him an advantage over his opponents.

He once said this about Maurizio Sarri, "I have no doubt that Sarri is one of the best managers out there, his style of football is as good as a drink in the sun."

Come match day, he gave him 6-0, so having the coach you are going to face praise your style of play, is like having the hangmen say, "you have a pretty neck."