The Sports Psychology Blog
This Sports Psychology blog, comes as England beat Sweden and Spain in friendlies at Wembley.
Sports Psychology: England - We Can Win It!
You can almost sense it. England have won a couple of home games. Nothing special about that. Unexceptional football. Meaningless friendlies.
Yet beneath the surface is that feeling again. The pre-tournament feeling that happens every single time England are involved in a big event.
It's the 'we can win it' feeling. You just know that someone in and around the England team is going to come out and say it at some point. 'We can win Euro 2012!'
Except that this time around, restraint appears to be holding sway. Restraint brought about through persistent failure and under-achievement.
But it won't last long. Fabio Capello has some new young players, who have never tasted international failure at his disposal. This will certainly fuel an outbreak of national hope and optimism. Underpinned by the yearning and desperation for national success, the 'we can win it' cliches will soon start to reveal themselves.
What should be said is ' We are desperate to win. We are the biggest under-achievers in world football and we have had enough of it!' Now that would be honest.
But it's unlikely to happen. The psychological lure of hope leading to failure, is now deeply ingrained in the national psyche. The same cycles of behaviour repeat themselves. People scratch their head wondering why it's happening again and again.
Yet no-one sits down and analyses the root psychological cause behind England's failure at big tournaments. Analysis that would ask questions such as:
- Why do we play with fear of failure?
- How could the players be more expressive?
- Why are we so poor at penalty shoot-outs?
- How does the high level of expectation affect players?
- What other factors are under-mining performance?
Until such questions are asked, then 'We can win it', followed by 'Why have we under-achieved again?', will continue to hold sway.
Try a Sports Psychology Taster Session...
