Host nation and tournament favourite Germany is eliminated from the Women’s World Cup in quarterfinal action. While the game with Japan unfolded, mention of the mental state of one of Germany’s star players, Birgit Prinz, was made by the play-by-play announcer, as cameras focussed on Prinz sitting on the player’s bench looking at the drama unfold. Will she play? Is she physically fit? Is she mentally fit?
The importance of the human psyche in sport achievement is gaining in prominence. Not only are athletes interested in being aware of physical fitness issues, but psychological factors and the role of sport psychology is becoming increasingly crucial to success. At the Torino Winter Olympics, gold medallist Jennifer Heil of Canada gave credit to her sport psychologist. In the 2010/2011 NHL season of hockey, the Edmonton Oilers made mention of hiring a sport psychologist.
Leading up to the day of Germany’s quarterfinal match with Japan, an article by Patrick Devaney posted on goal.com focussed on Birgit Prinz. She had been substituted off in the first two group matches against Canada and Nigeria, and was replaced by Inka Grings for the final group match against France. Devaney cites Prinz speaking with German publication Bild about criticism by the press about her play.
Prinz is quoted as saying: “I didn’t manage to cope with the pressure. I couldn’t help the team. The criticism was exaggerated though; it was something of a witch hunt.” I imagine the pressure on Prinz and the German team to perform in front of a home crowd with expectations of perfection to win their third straight Women’s World Cup is huge. The attention to the women’s game is growing steadily, the quality and entertainment value of the games is first class, and with so many top-rated teams competing for the prize, winning is not to be taken for granted. Attendance at the German games is virtually sold out and the high media attention is not what the athletes are used to.
So what is Prinz’s reaction to the criticism? She states she feels “attacked” (by the press). This is the point at which an awareness of the destructive versus constructive mindset is crucial to the psychological state of the athlete. The destructive mindset is about making the person out to be the problem. In this case, Prinz is seen to be the problem. As described in the potato book, Put Your Potatoes on the Desktop, she would be destructively seen to be the potato. Prinz, however, has a choice to make: does she agree she is the problem, and decide to resign from the team so that, as she states, “no more people can step on me”; or does she decide she is not the problem, believe in herself and work on her game, as she concludes, “The other solution is to go out there and do my best.”
The constructive mindset is about maintaining a belief in yourself and playing to the best of your ability. The chips then fall where they may. Birgit Prinz did not play in the match against Japan. Her team lost, but if she and her team-mates maintain a constructive mindset about their experience playing under pressure, they will see themselves as winners – they will have learned and grown in wisdom regarding the psychological dynamics at play in competition.
Before writing the potato book, my first attempt at showing the difference between the destructive and constructive mindsets took the shape of the FC Strategy®board game. It is designed to be a strategy game applied to the world sport of soccer/football, in many ways combining the attributes of chess with snakes and ladders from a board game point of view. The game also incorporates cards which show events during a game that involve the emotions, with possible responses according to destructive and constructive mindsets. The game can be used as a resource both for soccer strategy and for learning sport psychology. For more information about FC Strategy®, please go to www.fcstrategythegame.com. A demonstration of the game can be seen on YouTube and can be accessed by clicking on our Facebook page (top right corner of this screen), where a link to the video is on our Facebook wall.
