The title race is nearing its end. PSV is four points behind Ajax and will play against Feyenoord in De Kuip on Sunday afternoon. Earlier that afternoon, Ajax already played against AZ. If the team from Amsterdam win, PSV knows that it must win itself. Otherwise Ajax will get the scale. Sports psychologist Joost Pluijms answers five questions about the mental aspects in the title race.
1: Ajax starts at half past three, PSV at a quarter to five and then Ajax has just finished. Should Roger Schmidt inform the player group about the result of AZ-Ajax?
“For one player it can be motivating to know the result of AZ-Ajax, for another it can be stressful. That is personal and therefore requires self-knowledge. What motivates you, what drives someone? As a staff I wouldn’t necessarily do anything different in the preparation. But above all, motivate the players by asking the team how they want to be remembered. As far as I’m concerned, give it three more races and then see where you end up. Control the controllables.”
2: How can a top footballer keep his focus when he knows that the other important game has already been played?
“It turns out we have over 60,000 thoughts a day and the bad news is, most of them are bullshit. As a sports psychologist I regularly use the 3R model with athletes: register, release and refocus. It often helps to regularly record your thoughts and feelings before or after a match; positive, negative, whatever. Writing it down ensures that you take some distance from your thoughts, because they can fool you.”
3: Do you have a practical example of how to approach this?
“I coached a talented soccer goalkeeper who regularly became distracted and frustrated. As soon as he noticed that this was happening to him, he had to turn his attention to what he saw, heard, felt and smelled. He would look at the left intersection of the other goal, the dot in the box, and smell the freshly cut grass. With this he shifts his attention, from the inside out. And then get ready for the next action.”
4: Does it make sense if Schmidt pulls a trick? For example, by putting a surprising player in the base?
“At the Olympic Games in Vancouver, Gerard Kemkers, coach of Sven Kramer, decided to use a whiteboard for directions during the 10,000m long track speed skating. Normally he used his fingers. Due to a wrong indication on the whiteboard, he pointed Sven Kramer to the wrong track three quarters of the way through the game. Kramer followed the instructions and was disqualified. Kemkers acknowledged the blunder and called it the biggest mistake of his career. Stick to the plan, especially when things get tense.”
5: What do you expect from the competition?
I think AZ-Ajax 2-2 and Feyenoord-PSV 1-2; and so another round of tension! As a resident of Eindhoven, I hope that PSV will still remain in the race. I especially hope that PSV can evoke that nice feeling of the cup final in the Kuip and use it to train in the head: how the stadium went wild at the start of the second half. Or, for example, balls on the crossbar, post and offside situations. How did that victory feel, the fighting in the last minutes, the celebration in the stadium? You can draw a lot of energy from that.”
ALSO READ: Schmidt is looking forward to the denouement of the title fight in the Eredivisie