Sven-Göran Eriksson, he of the glamorous women and erstwhile England football manager, employed the sports psychologist Willi Railo to try to unlock the reason why our “so-called” golden generation of footballers, Gerrard et al, failed to perform in the big matches.
His, perhaps unsurprising, analysis was that the players were driven by a fear of making mistakes. Railo’s conclusion was that the players were stunted by the fear of failure, and therefore could not really excel or try things for the fear of the inevitable media scrutiny.
The aim therefore was to instil some fun into the England football camp, return the footballers to their roots, the reason why they became footballers. Take away the fear of failure and performance will increase. A lot of my work last term was spent trying to protect the staffroom and boost teacher morale.
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