I’M A SPORT PSYCHOLOGIST – TUCHEL’S HONESTY GIVES ENGLAND POWER TO WIN WORLD CUP
For many England players, tonight’s World Cup semi-final will be the biggest game of their lives so far. They’re facing the reigning champions, renewing a fierce national rivalry that goes beyond sport. They have ghosts of past losses to vanquish. And on top of all that, they’re contending with arguably the greatest footballer in history.
So, how will Thomas Tuchel’s team hopefully not just cope with the pressure in Atlanta, against Lionel Messi’s Argentina, but thrive on it?
Immediately after the 2-1 victory over Norway, Tuchel raised eyebrows by saying his team were “lucky”. He complained that England’s performance was “sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough”. It prompted that instantly famous response from exhausted star Jude Bellingham: “Whatever.”
Sport psychologist Dr Paul McCarthy admits Tuchel’s comments sounded like harsh criticism, but thinks he will have underlined to his players that in fact they were quite the opposite. “He is saying, ‘I expect more of you.’ That means he believes in them more than perhaps they believe in themselves. That is a vote of confidence.”
Although their “emotional responses” after the game might have led people to think there are tensions between manager and midfielder Bellingham, McCarthy believes things will have been “quite different” when they later reflected on the game privately. With Tuchel, players will value that “what he says is what he means”.
Being so frank with the squad may have built up their “resilience”, says McCarthy, who has worked with Premier League players. “It requires a humility to hear the lesson that needs to be learned… In high-performance sports, the standards set by a manager determine everything.”
Fellow sport psychologist David Charlton agrees. “Over the years, the narrative has been that we’re the nearly men, we’re not good enough. Tuchel was trying to change that.” He’s trying to create an “elite club environment” where players believe: “We’re winners, we deserve to be here.”
One of Tuchel’s strengths is being able to distill all the information he’s given by assistants, analysts and physios into clear messages at half-time and during hydration breaks, says Charlton. “A lot of coaches give too much information. You just want to keep it as short and simple as possible.”
However, part of a manager’s skill is reading the collective mood in a dressing room and assessing not just what to tell a team but who will provoke the best reaction. “If they realise they’re not the best person to do it in that moment, they’ll park their ego and get their number two or the captain to give the speech.”
Why visualisations are key
While the manager has sometimes been critical of his team’s performances, Tuchel has lauded their “pure mentality”, urging them to be “brave, courageous, intense”.
But if players become “intimidated” by the aura around Messi, “he could quite easily destroy England”, says Charlton.
To prevent this, Charlton says the players may have spent time this week visualising difficult scenarios, such as “Messi tearing England apart for 10 or 15 minutes”, contemplating what emotions that could provoke and how they want to react.
After watching videos of how defenders have marked, blocked or tackled Messi in the past, they will then imagine themselves doing this.
“You’ve played the match in your mind a hundred times, so you’re able to step up and feel like you’ve been there before, reacting at an unconscious level,” says Charlton. “We’re trying to get mind and body working in harmony, so that when you’re in these big pressure moments, things just happen – they feel like out-of-body experiences.”
Players may also remind themselves how they’ve fought back successfully in the past. For example, Harry Kane may recall how he overcame the disappointment of his initial penalty miss against Croatia by staying composed and scoring the retake after a mistake by the opposition goalkeeper.
Charlton explains: “He could be laying in the hotel bedroom with his eyes closed, visualising that he’s missed a penalty, bringing all his senses into play – what that feels like and looks like, what he hears with the crowd and all the hullabaloo. Then, he’s picturing himself in the moment, resetting to go again, seeing the ball nestle in the corner and celebrating.”
The players may also take part in group visualisation sessions, not just sat in a circle with a psychologist but during training sessions with Tuchel.
The trick, says McCarthy, is to avoid overdoing this so they still feel fresh and energised, because psychological fatigue can be “much more chronic” than physical tiredness.
Years of prep – and how even Messi faces mental challenges
Mentally, the players began preparing for games like this while they were still children. Besides developing their footwork, agility, strength and athleticism over decades, many footballers work with psychologists every week or two back at their clubs, while some employ their own on a private basis.
This trains them for dealing with anxieties, injuries or losses of form, as well as the pressure of performing in big matches, watched by millions of fans who can turn from being supportive to abusive in a single second.
The Football Association has its own team focused on the mental side of the game. Following Gareth Southgate’s successful work with Dr Pippa Grange – portrayed by Jodie Whittaker in James Graham’s recent BBC drama Dear England – Richard Hampson was appointed as England’s head of psychology in September 2024, shortly before Tuchel became coach.
Hampson helped to steel Andy Murray for his second men’s singles title at Wimbledon in 2016. He then joined British Cycling before the Tokyo Olympics, where Team GB’s riders won more gold medals than those of any other nation.
Tuchel said in May that Hampson “observes communication, behaviours within the group, behaviours within the matches, and compares it to other national teams on the highest level and shows us opportunity where to improve”.
Hampson, who holds an MA in sport and exercise psychology from Loughborough University, outlined in 2019 that his goal is to understand athletes “as people, and understand why they’re here, what’s gone on in their background, what kind of support they might need to tolerate the challenges ahead of them”.
The ultimate challenge will come if the game goes to penalties. But after years of humiliation, England have won three of their last four shoot-outs since 2018.
McCarthy puts this transformation down to psychology, with players taking more time to compose themselves before their spot kicks and planning how to shoot “days or weeks before”.
This is one aspect of the game where Messi is vulnerable. He’s missed both of his penalties at this tournament, and has scored just four out of eight World Cup spot kicks throughout his career. It’s all in the mind, eh Lionel?
2026-07-15T06:15:40Z
