I’ve taken time out from my day job in embodied stress and leadership training to do my patriotic duty and tell England how to win the upcoming football World Cup Finals. Like most fans I know very little about football, but think I know best and do know a little bit about a range of bodymind techniques that could help England win.
Why England Lose
England general field a reasonable football team in the World Cup finals – we invented the game after all and the English Premier league is regarded as the best in the world – so why then do England lose every bloody four years? There are two main reasons – penalties and discipline.
Penalties are how many World Cup Finals games are decided and England have one of the worst records around having gone out to rivals Germany, Argentina and Portugal in recent years alone. The other way England lose is through their best players getting sent off through ill discipline The video below shows David Beckham getting the red card after being antagonised by and fouling an Argentine. It also shows the extreme levels of stress players are under. The World Cup is one of the most pressurised events in possible to imagine and players on all ides are hyper-aroused and suffering from massive doses of anxiety much of the time. Classic instances on ill behaviour in the World Cup have come from almost every team – Italy, Holland, Argentina, Germany and France have all been involved in everything from serious violence (e.g. head-butt and brawls) to general nastiness such as spitting. Even the normally playful and relaxed (an therefore super successful) Brazilians lost a star player due to stress when it mattered most.
So what football success at this level really comes down to is not flashy moves or complicated tactics, but stress management – teaching players to control themselves when the pressure is on. There is plenty of science to back-up the notion that stress management is crucial to footballing prowess. This study from the University of Exeter for example show how eye movement (critical for taking penalties) is effected by stress and anxiety.
What England Need to Learn to Win The World Cup
Here are some basic bodymind techniques that would help England do better and bring home the trophy!
Practice!
In some past World Cups England have not practiced penalties! This is obviously very VERY stupid. Not only do England need to practice but that practice should be as close to reality as possible. And here’s the tricky part as how does one recreate the intense pressure, psychological and physical arousal of a World Cup penalty shoot-out? I would suggest subjecting the stars to intense pressure first to raise their arousal levels – hang the buggers off the edge of a cliff, inject them with adrenliane or threaten to mess-up their haircuts or sponsorship deals if they miss. More seriously, why not put on a free penalty practice tournament at Wembley, televised around the world, where players who miss have their pay halved. Even without such extreme measures just practising everyday replicating the situation as closely as possible (e.g. headphones with jeering fans) would make a huge difference.
Stress and Arousal Reduction Techniques
In the martial arts techniques to reduce physiological arousal and take the edge of stress for peak performance are common-place. I have been working with such techniques for some years and can train someone in 5 minutes to use them. This video by my colleague Paul Linden shows some basics and here is a step by step guide on how to centre.
Psychological Training
A number of previously esoteric psychological training skills are used by most athletes these days and the England team probably have a sports physiologist teaching them visualisations for penalty success already – if not it would help. Meditation too would also be very useful to calm them down while simultaneously heightening their awareness. Meditation has been used by martial artists for centuries – and I personally I find it clears my mind and slows things down perceptually enabling better choices. There are various other psychological techniques fomr the martial and medidatiove arts that I would also like to teach the England team to turn them into footballing ninjas.
Emotional Intelligence, communication training and team building
Footballers are not known for their emotional intelligence. This is perhaps unfair as many are excellent communicators (in their own way), leaders and tam players. These skills which are a key part of football could be encouraged through some targeted communication training and team building. It would of course need to be languaged correctly to fit culturally and some embodied empathy team building techniques would be easy to incorporate into training.
If this all sounds far fetched for a football team to do I would note that many of the skill discussed have been taught to Western Armed Forces personnel so are not “fluffy” if approached in the right way, and are becoming increasingly part of the mainstream so could b accepted. Maybe it’s too late for this World Cup but if England get knocked out again due to stress management or discipline and want some help in the future they are welcome to drop me a line.
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