The World Cup is on and during the weekend, as I was watching a couple of games (and yes, also enjoying some appetizers) , I was reminded that the teams lifting the trophy aren’t always the most talented. They’re the best prepared. Let’s think about it for a minute. Long before the opening match, the winning teams studied their opponents, refined their tactics, tested different formations, identified how to block a key player on the opposing team (Ronaldo or Messi come to mind) and prepared for situations they hope never happen as they know unexpected challenges are all part of the game. Watching these games made me realize that IT leaders, just as soccer teams and Coaches, face a remarkably similar challenge. The only difference is that our “final match” can happen on any Tuesday morning or even during the weekend. Remember hackers and bad elements don’t work on 90 minutes time frames and they “work” 24/7. A ransomware attack, a failed software update, an accidental deletion (ouch), a cloud outage and the list go on. Unlike soccer, there is no fixture list telling us when disruption will arrive. When it does, it’s too late to discover that your backups haven’t been tested or that your cloud workloads, endpoints, or SaaS applications aren’t fully protected. Over the years, and as mentioned before, I’ve spoken with countless IT professionals, and one thing has always stood out: almost everyone believes they’re prepared. Yet industry research continues to show a different reality. Organizations remain highly confident in their backup strategies while many still experience data loss, lengthy recovery times, and unexpected gaps when a real incident occurs. It’s a little like watching a coach of a national soccer team arrive at the World Cup (place the name of your favorite team here) convinced