“In football, trust is everything.” I heard this phrase, uttered by striker Rômulo, during a trip to Germany at the end of last year, at a lunch at RB Leipzig’s facilities in which the Brazilian participated.
I believe most footballers agree. I’ll go further: in sport in general, if the head isn’t good, the body suffers, and the “human machine” stalls. Trust is fundamental.
Those without it are the players from Tottenham, one of the most traditional and popular teams in London. Without achieving a single victory in the English Championship (Premier League) this year – 15 games since January, with 9 defeats and 6 draws –, they occupy the relegation zone.
Their coach, Italian Roberto De Zerbi, in charge since the end of March and the third to manage Spurs this season, declared that the team suffers from a “mentality problem”. As a result of this, the management opened a vacancy for a psychologist, announcing it on the club’s social network.
We are looking for an excellent performance psychologist. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, you will lead the provision of psychological support to elite professional players. The role requires a reliable, discreet and highly effective professional, capable of building trust with players and coaches
Is there time to hire someone who can give a “shot in the arm” to a notoriously insecure group? There are only five rounds left until the competition ends.
Richarlison, the Pigeon, now the team’s reserve, turned to psychology for help in 2023, when he had emotional problems and started undergoing therapy. It worked, according to him, with improvements in well-being and performance.
If Tottenham’s attempt, which has been in the elite division in England since 1977, is successful now, the professional will be praised and the media will seek to discover the methods used for the rapid transformation. It is, however, unlikely. It is considered that psychological/emotional work does not have an immediate effect, but rather after weeks or months.
The Brazilian team, at the 2014 World Cup, at home, is an example of this. When he felt the group was mentally fragile, with excessive nervousness in the round of 16 (classification on penalties against Chile), coach Felipão hurriedly summoned Regina Brandão, a psychologist who had worked with the team in the 2002 World Cup, which won the penta.
It didn’t help. The team remained emotionally unwell in the quarter-finals (2-1 in Colombia, a game in which Neymar suffered a serious back injury), sank psychologically in the semi-final (7-1 against Germany, the biggest embarrassment in the team’s history) and did not recover for the third place match (another defeat, 3-0 against the Netherlands).
In the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, under the direction of Tite, Brazil discarded a psychologist. It really seemed unnecessary, given the excellent results accumulated in the Qualifiers.
The morale of the players was always high, and the only moment of clear shock occurred after Croatia, in extra time, equalized and took the quarter-final game to penalties in Qatar. Juninho Paulista, coordinator of the selection at the time, said that the team went into action already defeated.
On the way to this year’s World Cup, which starts in June, the team once again had a professional (Marisa Santiago), present during the period in which the athletes were together for the matches. Has anyone resorted to it? If so, no one disclosed it.
It is clear that football players are reluctant to consult each other. They doubt the effectiveness of the “treatment”, without knowing that this distrust prevents them from obtaining precisely what they need most: trust.
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