Football's Return from Enforced Layoff Means a Whole New Mind Game

Bournemouth’s Simon Francis said there could be no doubting the risks involved in the Premier League returning. (Reuters)
Bournemouth’s Simon Francis said there could be no doubting the risks involved in the Premier League returning. (Reuters)
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Football's Return from Enforced Layoff Means a Whole New Mind Game

Bournemouth’s Simon Francis said there could be no doubting the risks involved in the Premier League returning. (Reuters)
Bournemouth’s Simon Francis said there could be no doubting the risks involved in the Premier League returning. (Reuters)

The number of pieces that need to be in place for football to return can be difficult to keep in mind. Testing, sterile environments, quarantine locations, suitability of venues, the scheduling of events, creating an atmosphere in an empty stadium. Each has its own difficulties, which impinge on others. But the most complex challenge of all may be the one players have to undertake themselves.

The assertive aspect of sports psychology – visualizing goals, excluding doubt – is understood but last week the international players’ union, Fifpro, reported an increase in depression during lockdown. The former Chelsea doctor Eva Carneiro, in assessing players’ condition, described people we often imagine to be unstoppable machines as “vulnerable”. The anxieties provoked by COVID-19 have inveigled their way into the lives of athletes just as much as they have the rest of us.

Footballers, particularly those in the Premier League, may also face a choice many of us do not. That is the question of how to return to work – work that requires forceful, physical contact – in the middle of a pandemic.

“The majority of players are scared because they have children and families,” said Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero. “They will be quite nervous and extra careful.” In describing the measures necessary to get games back on, the Brighton striker Glenn Murray said: “It is not going to be natural.” Simon Francis of Bournemouth put it bluntly: “There’s no doubt of the risks involved.”

The hurdle athletes have to clear psychologically to be ready to compete could be as difficult as any other challenge facing the game, and for a number of reasons. “There is so much research going on about this right now,” says Matt Cunliffe, a performance psychologist in the department of life and sports sciences at the University of Greenwich. “There are a lot of people looking at the psychological effects of the pandemic on sporting performance but also psychological health and wellbeing. That’s because the situation is unprecedented, it’s completely new.”

What psychologists do know is that stress has an impact on performance. It leaves players more prone to falling ill and more prone to sustaining injury. It also affects the ability to recover.

“If you don’t do rehab or prehab because of stress, that can have an impact,” Cunliffe says. “If you’re not hydrating, or your heart rate or blood pressure is high, it can impact on recovery. Stress has an impact on all that. It can also impact on decision-making, particularly during a match, like the decision to make a rash tackle.

“What stress is essentially doing is making your behaviors sub-optimal, “which then impacts on the physiological. But we also know that stress, in particular psychological stress such as excessive training and performance demands, or stress on social relations, but also fear of infection – we know that it does impact on the immune system, too.”

Teams are well versed in dealing with stress but not the kind that comes from fear of infection by a virus. Martin Turner, a reader in psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, says: “Uncertainty and uncontrollability are the key factors that cause stress. If you think about how athletes operate, especially in team sports, there’s been a drive to create an environment that is predictable. Everything is in place to maximize potential.

“In some aspects of training they will build in uncertainty to pressure but [COVID-19] is adding uncertainty into the environment per se. It is not a stress athletes are used to.”

According to Turner, not only does the addition of a new stress have the consequences Cunliffe describes, it also affects the other messages coaches may want to pass on. “This stress requires a different way of coping,” he says. “It requires a kind of emotional coping, for players to be able to tell themselves: ‘I’m in a safe environment, I trust the medical staff.’ But at the same time they have to try to maximize their potential in a less than ideal context. They have to ask themselves: ‘What can I do to maintain prowess and keep safe?’ Those two things could be opposing.”

The strength of any footballer lies in the team and the routes out of COVID-induced stress will be found through collective support, says Turner. “One thing about being in a team is camaraderie. The virus could be perceived as a unifier, a shared challenge. What you need is for a leader in the group to come into training with focus and confidence and display trust to staff, so that it can then ripple through the team.”

Another irony of the current situation is that football often spreads its camaraderie through physical contact, not just in playing together but the hugs, head rubs and pranks that are part of squad building. That, too, is impossible right now.

The pandemic is unlike anything anyone has experienced before and that means that there is no guarantee that taking certain measures will lead to the outcome people want.

“I think anxiety is the right response in this situation,” Turner says. “Anxiety is there to tell us that things are not right in the environment. If a club was going back into [competition] and they weren’t anxious, that would be a concern.

“Accepting and recognizing anxiety is key. Footballers are not going to let [anxiety they are feeling] get into the public domain, which is a shame because I think it could help to normalize it. But, internally, they would do well to accept and recognize it. It’s about helping people to cope.”

The Guardian Sport



Swiatek Crushes Anisimova 6-0 6-0 to Win Maiden Wimbledon Crown

Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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Swiatek Crushes Anisimova 6-0 6-0 to Win Maiden Wimbledon Crown

Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Iga Swiatek took another stride towards tennis greatness by ruthlessly tearing apart American 13th seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0 6-0 and lifting her first Wimbledon trophy on Saturday.

The big occasion turned into a nightmare for Anisimova who became the first woman to lose a Wimbledon final by that painful scoreline since 1911 and the first to do so at any major since Steffi Graf routed Natasha Zvereva at the 1988 French Open.

Already a US Open champion and a four-times French Open winner, Swiatek's demolition job at the All England Club meant that she became the youngest woman since a 20-year-old Serena Williams in 2002 to lift major titles on all three surfaces.

Her superb display on the sun-drenched lawns of London also ensured that she emerged as the first player since Monica Seles in 1992 to win her first six major finals.

"It's something that is just surreal. I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself," Swiatek told reporters after hoisting the gilded Venus Rosewater Dish.

"I'm really happy with the whole process, how it looked like from the first day we stepped on a grasscourt. Yeah, I feel like we did everything for it to go in that direction without expecting it, just working really hard.

"It means a lot, and it gives me a lot of experience. Yeah, I don't even know. I'm just happy."

Swiatek's triumph ended a barren 13-month run for the Polish 24-year-old, who served a short suspension late last year after an inadvertent doping violation linked to contaminated sleep medication melatonin.

"I want to thank my coach (Wim Fissette). With the ups and downs now, we showed everybody it's working," Swiatek added.

SCORCHING START

On another warm afternoon on Centre Court, Swiatek got off to a scorching start by breaking a nervous Anisimova three times en route to dishing out the first bagel, prompting some spectators to get behind the shell-shocked American.

A frustrated Anisimova shrieked and desperately looked to her team in the stands for any kind of guidance after conceding yet another break point early in the second set and it was not long before her machine-like opponent pulled away further, Reuters reported.

Anisimova continued to disappointingly crack under pressure, before Swiatek completed the brutal mauling in 57 minutes with a backhand winner on her second match point to become the first Wimbledon champion from Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk celebrated with a picture of himself watching a post-match interview while holding a bowl of pasta and strawberries, Swiatek's cheat meal at Wimbledon, while President Andrzej Duda was effusive in his praise.

"Iga! Today, on the grasscourts of Wimbledon, you wrote history - not only for Polish sport, but also for Polish pride. On behalf of the Republic of Poland - thank you," Duda wrote.

Victory took Swiatek to 100 wins from 120 matches at the majors, making her the quickest to get to there since Williams in 2004, and denied Anisimova the chance to become the first American to win the title since her compatriot in 2016.

Swiatek jumped for joy on court before running towards her team in the stands to celebrate her triumph. The Friends fan was equally delighted to receive a congratulatory hug from American actress Courteney Cox, who was among the spectators.

All this while, Anisimova was left to wonder what could have been as she sat in her seat, before the tears began to flow during her on-court interview.

Few would have envisioned the American to hit the heights she did in the last fortnight after she fell outside the top 400 following her mental health break two years ago.

"I didn't have enough today," said Anisimova, who began the tournament with a 6-0 6-0 win over Yulia Putintseva but admitted to running out of gas in the final.

"I'm going to keep putting in the work, and I always believe in myself. I hope to be back again one day."

It was bitter disappointment for US fans hoping for an "American Slam" this year after Madison Keys won the Australian Open at the start of the year and Coco Gauff triumphed at the French Open last month.