Watching football recently I’ve found myself paying extra attention to players’ demeanour on the pitch and it got me thinking, aside from the obvious physical aspects, what innate mental traits can give players an edge over their opposition? Now there are a multitude of answers to this question and this is a topic that you could write books and books worth of text on. So, I’ll hone in on just one. Arrogance.
Now this word is quite fragile and I mean this in a positive sense. It’s defined as; “a claiming for oneself of more importance than is warranted.” Essentially, almost a blind level of self-confidence in which you believe you’re the best at what you do.
Often players in this category are, in fact, the best, but to get to this stage they needed an excessive amount of self-confidence in the first place. Think Neymar, Ronaldo, Ibrahimovic, Zidane, Mbappé, Van Dijk, and so on. Even players who don’t present themselves in this way such as Arjen Robben. He may have come across as a well-mannered, humble individual. Yet, his play style completely disregards the opposition’s actions, knowing that if he cut in on his left, he would score.
Anyhow, consider a 1-vs-1 between defender and attacker. Many of such battles are won or lost before any engagement even takes place. Physical attributes play a massive role, of course, but how many attackers completely lost their minds in a 1-vs-1 against Van Dijk because they didn’t blindly believe they could beat him?
In contrast, a player such as Vinicius Jr. could dribble 5 times against Van Dijk and he’ll still have just as much belief he could beat him in the 6th, and he will. This is invaluable.
Another obvious situation is that of shooting opportunities. The best strikers have always been the arrogant ones, this is no secret. Henry, R9, Drogba, and Haaland have all had such blind confidence in their ability that if they missed the first chance they’d score the next 3. Once again, on the other end of the spectrum see; Jackson, Nunez and Havertz who all suffer from patchy form due to their mental fallibility in finishing situations.
Finally, and the reason I wrote this article, is penalty kicks. I’ve spoken in length about an execution delay being the most important facet of the penalty routine, and this is true for most players. The delay allows them to compose themselves under pressure, take control of the situation and execute as they would during low-arousal training.
What if you never lose control of the situation though?
This idea came to me when I was watching the video footage for my dissertation and I noticed Ronaldo, one of the best takers of all time, rarely delayed any time to execute his kick but still scored every time. It didn’t take long for me to conclude why he was so immune to this effect that everyone else so obviously suffered. His complete arrogance that he would score meant that he was always in control of the situation. No delay is required to calm your nerves if you’re never on edge in the first place (obviously). Notably, earlier in his career he missed the most high-profile penalty of all in the UCL final at a time when his arrogance was more youthful exuberance than genuine fearlessness.
Despite being of a similar age to Ronaldo back then, I believe Cole Palmer has this already. Watch him take a penalty in the 90+5th minute against Man City, he looks completely unphased. Academy talents being exposed to much higher levels of pressure than they were can accelerate the process these days.
So yeah, this ‘arrogance’ I speak of is something that should never be trained out of a player. It must be channelled effectively and weaponised to the benefit of the team. It’s a characteristic shared by so many of the top players through no coincidence.
Finally, this is why I’ve been so happy to see Bukayo Saka add this edge to his own game. He was humble in nature both on and off the pitch when he missed his penalty at the Euros. He’s still the same humble individual off it, but he’s a killer on it. Players can try and put on this facade of confidence but until they genuinely believe it deep down the cracks will always show. Not groundbreaking stuff I know, I just thought it was a fun thing to consider.
Mind Over Matter 