The Chances to Watch Someone's Dreams Coming True

First published on May 13, 2019

The chances in our life to watch someone's dreams coming true are so rare. We had one last week. I was on a train, and missed it live, but later I watched it back as a reporter played the Brazilian commentary on Tottenham Hotspur's remarkable win away at Ajax back to Spurs' Brazilian forward Lucas Moura.

The translation of the commentary is amazing - as they shout 'It had to be you, Lucas!' and 'It's from the heart!' - as Lucas scores a goal which took Spurs through and sent Ajax out with what could have been the last kick of the game. Because of the era we live in, even though I missed it live I was able to watch a video back of Lucas seeing the commentary, effectively minutes after the final whistle, and watching as he - with brilliant technical skill - took Dele Alli's flick and finished so quickly that the goalkeeper could barely move. The emotion in him was palpable, you don't need a translation to feel the energy of the moment, to feel for this man. You don't even need to know his story, but I'll tell it anyway: a promising forward who struggled to get a place in the team at Paris St Germain and moved to Tottenham 18 months ago, and may have only been playing because of Harry Kane's injury, he scored not once, not twice, but three times as Spurs came back from 3-0 down on aggregate, away from home, to reach the Champion's League final for the first time. But what he says, as he watches it, wiping tears away from his eyes, is that he has been dreaming of winning the Champion's League since he was a little boy. And now he is playing in the final. And he scored the goals that took them there, each of them requiring not only skill but nerve, courage and - yes - heart.

It reminded me, as I watched it back this morning, of Wayne Rooney breaking the England goalscoring record. Even though some of the ability that had made Rooney such an explosive player in the first half of his career had left him, even though he may - as he broke the record - have been holding the England team back, seeing that moment as he scored his 50th goal for England, breaking Bobby Charlton's decades-old record of 49 goals, I felt the emotion of it. And his team-mates knew, too, running from the other length of the field to congratulate him. This wasn't just any goal. It was the dreams of a little boy from Liverpool fulfilled before our eyes.

He used to have those dreams, I don't doubt, as he played wherever he played when he was little. He, like I, like so many children, knew about Charlton's 49 goals and Lineker's 48, and probably commentated to himself - like I did - on the fictional World Cups played in his imagination on a front lawn or a street corner. And there, as he scored the penalty, that dream was fulfilled.

It is what makes the Olympics special: these rare occasions, just once every four years, which someone has been working towards potentially their whole life. And we get to see those moments.

And as I sit here this morning, reflecting, I wonder about Lucas Moura, and his manager, Mauricio Pochettino, who also struggled to hold back the tears. Because they haven't won it yet. They won't be favourites in the final against Liverpool. I wonder if this will be the height of it, the height of the emotion. It was from the psychologist Jordan Peterson that I learnt the idea that fulfillment comes not from achieving our goals, but from seeing our progress towards them. I've felt this to be true in my life, and I wonder if that is one of the reasons that this moment for Lucas, for Pochettino, is so special. They are still on their journey towards their dreams.

The dreams are important. They are what guide us in our lives, if we dare to dream. And the progress is important: noticing the moments, as Lucas did on Wednesday, when we are achieving monumental things in pursuit of our dreams.

Not all of us dream of fame and fortune, not all of us have(/score) such public goals. That moment of dreams coming true can show up in the most surprising - and expected - of places: the hospital as a child is born, the office as an email is sent, the hilltop as the mountain is climbed, the shop as a product is sold.

But notice, for a moment, the language that I - unthinkingly - used at the start of this article. The chances in our life to watch someone's dreams coming true. An active word, an emergent word. Don't miss the moments as they are coming.