Such is the inner belief that managers often emit, there is half a chance that Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice knew he would be reborn as Eamonn Fitzmaurice All Ireland winning manager by the end of 2014.
Despite low expectations for the Kingdom at the start of the Championship due to injuries and poor league form, Fitzmaurice's astute tactics were instrumental as Sam Maguire returned to a regular stop-off point.
"I think a lot of people in Kerry didn't see us doing much this year. Maybe in a strange kind of way, that took a bit of pressure off the whole group and left us to plough away and do our own thing," said Fitzmaurice, who also highlighted how a training camp in Portugal helped the team put a disappointing league defeat to Cork into the distant past.
Even before 2014 had got underway, Fitzmaurice had to deal with a major setback as star forward Colm Cooper succumbed to a cruciate knee ligament injury that would ultimately cause him to miss Kerry's title run.
"Rather than thinking of myself or the team, I was thinking of Colm because he'd had a fantastic year in 2013. I think it hit us both pretty much straight away. It was a disappointment at the time but it was just one of those things that we could deal with and move on from," said Fitzmaurice on that blow.
But he also felt that the team had to be reconfigured to a degree to make up for the Gooch's absence.
He also addressed the reintegration of final hero Kieran Donaghy into the starting XV as the Championship wore on as his injuries receded.
"He really drove his case between the Galway game and the Mayo game and his form in training picked up. He put himself back in the picture, really. It wasn't a case of the last throw of the dice."
Fitzmaurice also touched on the way the commitment to management encroaches into a coach's personal life, even when he is trying to relax by watching TV, while he also spoke about writing a personal letter to all the players on the morning of the All Ireland final.
He has called for inter-county players to be better compensated for the sacrifices that they have to make, saying that the expenses paid to players need to be revised to reflect the changes in the standards of living since they were first introduced.
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