A brain of two halves: Football management skills, by Professor Mark Griffiths

So Fabio Capello has held onto his managerial position despite the fact that England couldn’t progress past the knockout phase of the World Cup. I’m one of those cynics who thinks that he held onto his job not because of his great managerial skills but because the English FA couldn’t really afford the £12million compensation they’d have to pay if they sacked him. Personally, I don’t think all the blame for England’s sorry showing can be down to Capello’s management. There’s plenty of evidence outside of the English game that Capello is (or at the very least has been) a good manager. But it does get you thinking about what qualities and skills an ideal manager needs to possess to guarantee international football success in the current climate.

Sport psychologist Martin Perry has written a number of populist pieces about “the perfect manager”. He often talks about a football manager needing to be “whole brained”. The reason he says this is because the human brain has two distinct sides (more usually known as the right and left hemispheres). Each hemisphere is responsible for different human actions. Many people develop dominance toward a particular side of their brain. As a consequence, they tend to have certain characteristics and areas of common interest. The left side of the brain is often thought of as the objective, logical, rational, thinking side and has more influence on speech, analytical reasoning, writing, and mathematical literacy. The right side of the brain is the more subjective, creative, and has more of an influence on imagination, intuition, empathy, spatial awareness, sporting ability, and artistic temperament.

This is why Perry argues that the perfect football manager will be ‘whole-brained’, as they need to be equally adept at using both left- and right-hemispheric skills. In addition, Perry also claims that the ideal football manager would have honed a wide range of specific skills utilising both sides of the human brain. These are Perry’s ‘Top 10’ key skills:

• Vision. Here, the manager’s perception and original thinking helps him to see beyond the immediate needs of their team.
• Innovation. Here, the manager introduces new philosophy of doing things, experiments, and utilises successful strategies from other arenas (such as the business world).
• Edge. Here, the manager acts without sentiment or emotion. Perry says that such managers are driven by a subconscious fear of failure and are never satisfied with their success (although he doesn’t offer any scientific evidence for this).
• Strategy. Here, the manager is a master tactician who loves the psychological mind games that football at the highest level provokes.
• Storytelling. Here, the manager is able to provide meaning and relevance to every game played by his team. This, Perry argues, needs to be embedded in a strong awareness of the history of the football club, its community values and cultural significance.
• Respect. Here, a manager exudes respect for himself and others around him that instills a strong sense of belonging, moral certainty and a family spirit.
• Leadership. Here, a manager creates loyal “disciples” who will sustain and articulate the team’s culture. The players become “ambassadors” for both the team and for football more generally.
• Communication. Here, the manager knows how bring the best in every player (i.e., the right words, at the right time, in the right way for the right reasons).
• Principle. Here the manager has a defined ideology and acts without compromise. They have clear beliefs, standards and ideals that they champion in every area of their lives.
• Organisation. Here, the manager utilises meticulous and detailed preparation techniques, and leaves nothing to chance.

I’m not sure how many of these attributes Capello brings to the England set-up, but someone, somewhere at the FA clearly believes he ticks the right boxes.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

When the going gets rough, Clough gets going: The wit and wisdom of Nottingham’s greatest football legend, by Professor Mark Griffiths

OK, so the two semi-finals are over and we all have a bit of ‘down time’ before this weekend’s World Cup Final. Time for a bit of frivolity before the business end of the tournament kicks off.

In a previous blog (“I’ll get my quote”: Managing their reputation), I recounted some of my favourite quotes from football managers around the world. I also mentioned that some football managers could have a whole column to themselves and top of the list would be the best manager England never had – Brian Clough, OBE (“old big ‘ead” to the masses). Cloughie was arrogant, as typified in his most famous quote when reflecting on his management career (“I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one”).

Here are my other golden Cloughie moments starting with some more arrogant claims:

• “The river Trent is lovely, I know because I have walked on it for 18 years”
• “When I go, God’s going to have to give up his favourite chair”
• “We talk about it for twenty minutes and then we decide I was right”
• “I’ve decided to pick my moment to retire very carefully – in about 200 years time”
• “Telling the entire world and his dog how good a manager I was. I knew I was the best but I should have said nowt and kept the pressure off ‘cos they’d have worked it out for themselves”
• “I’m sure the England selectors thought if they took me on and gave me the job [as England Manager), I’d want to run the show. They were shrewd, because that’s exactly what I would have done”
• “Rome wasn’t built in a day. But I wasn’t on that particular job”

On England’s exit from the 2000 European Football Championship:

• “Players lose you games, not tactics. There’s so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes”

On his alcoholism:

• “Walk on water? I know most people out there will be saying that instead of walking on it, I should have taken more of it with my drinks. They are absolutely right”
• “I’m dealing with my drinking problem and I have a reputation for getting things done”

On Sir Alec Ferguson only winning one European Cup:

• “For all his horses, knighthoods and championships, he hasn’t got two of what I’ve got. And I don’t mean balls!”

On women’s football:

• “I like my women to be feminine, not sliding into tackles and covered in mud”

On Sven Goran Eriksson, former England manager:

• “At last they’ve got a manager who speaks better English than they do”
• “I might be an old codger now and slightly past my best as a gaffer, but the FA would know they’re safe with me. At least I’d keep my trousers on”

On managing Roy Keane:

• “I only ever hit Roy the once. He got up so I couldn’t have hit him very hard”

On football hooliganism:

“Football hooligans? Well, there are 92 club chairmen for a start”

Classic Clough. Nuff said.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Let he who is without win cast the first moan: Football betting and the gaming industry, by Professor Mark Griffiths

Not everyone in Britain is unhappy that the England team has been knocked out of the World Cup (and no, I’m not talking about Scotland supporters). England’s untimely exit in South Africa has saved British bookmakers from an estimated payout of over £50m. In fact, David Williams of Ladbrokes went as far as saying that if England had won the World Cup it would have been “the darkest day in history for the betting industry.”

In an earlier blog (Bored games: The case of gambling and football), I argued that football and gambling are inextricably linked. Psychologists claim that gamblers are attracted to betting on football because they love competitiveness. Sociologists have speculated that human instinctual expressive needs, such as competition, can be temporarily satisfied when engaging in gambling activities. The US sociologist Erving Goffman developed what he called the ‘deprivation-compensation’ theory to explain the relationship between gambling and competitiveness. He suggested that the stability of modern society no longer created situations where competitive instincts are tested. Therefore, gambling is an artificial, self-imposed situation of instability that can be instrumental in creating an opportunity to test competitive capabilities.

One of the problems for regular sports gamblers is that they can sometimes experience what we psychologists call an ‘illusion of control’. Put simply, those who bet on football matches think they have more chance of winning than they actually do. Many sports gamblers passionately believe their betting is skill-based, and offer very specific explanations when they fail to win. These beliefs have been tested experimentally by US psychologist Thomas Gilovich in a study of the biased evaluations in sports gambling behaviour. In three studies using people who bet on football games, Gilovich demonstrated that gamblers transformed their losses into ‘near wins’. What’s more, my own research has shown that gamblers not only feel psychologically and physiologically rewarded when they win, but also when they nearly win.

Gilovich also showed that gamblers pinpoint random or ‘fluke’ events that contributed to a loss but were unaffected by identical events that contributed to a win. I’m sure you can all think of instances like this when watching a football match. When your team loses, it’s not uncommon to berate the referee for a dodgy penalty decision or deride the linesman because he failed to spot an offside (or that Frank Lampard did actually score against Germany).

If you placed a bet on England to beat Germany, you may have blamed England’s loss on one particular event (such as the disallowed Lampard goal). Had England won with a dodgy refereeing decision going England’s way, you would have probably rationalised it and convinced yourself that England would have won anyway because of their superior playing ability and skill. (I know this sounds delusional under the circumstances but it’s not uncommon among hard-core gamblers who lose). Gilovich also reported that gamblers spent more time discussing their losses and discounting them. For example, after a loss, a lot of time may be spent analysing a small incident of a few seconds duration (e.g., Tevez’s offside goal against Mexico) even though the game lasted 90 minutes. What’s more, we make ourselves feel better by blaming the loss on something or someone external (such as a single poor refereeing decision).

Finally, it’s worth noting that one of the questions that I get asked most often is why people gamble regularly if in the long run they tend to lose? Well, you have to remember that gamblers don’t consistently lose, they consistently nearly win which as I highlighted above is both physiologically and psychologically rewarding! No wonder the betting industry loves sports gamblers.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Battle hacks: Football, stereotypes, and the national identity, by Professor Mark Griffiths

I don’t know about you, but I take a keen interest in how newspapers use narratives, metaphors, analogies, stereotypes, and puns when they write about the build up to a football match or the post-match analysis. Even after the drubbing by Germany, The Sun’s headline was “All 4-1 and one for all”. Here the message was that the England team was united – even in defeat. Before the Germany match, every story had somewhat predictable headlines in an attempt to either rally the country behind England (“Stand up and be counted”, “It’s revenge time”), to make rhetorical capital out of individuals like the England goalkeeper David James (“He’s got the whole world in his Hans”) and Germany’s ex-captain Franz Beckenbauer (“Kaiser sticks Das Boot in”), and/or poke racist fun – or should that be racist pun? – at the whole German team (“We’re ganna bish bash the Bosch”, “Keep it English, it’s the only way to sour the Krauts”).

There has been relatively little academic research carried out on the narratives used by the football media in relation to how national football teams are portrayed in print. However, in 2006, Liz Crolley (from Liverpool University) and her colleague David Hand, published a book called Football and European Identity based on their academic research over a number of years. They claimed that newspaper narratives about football matches don’t just reflect the game itself, but also help shape readers’ awareness of national identities. To support this view, Crolley and Hand analysed the written content of various European newspapers’ match coverage of football tournaments. I was particularly interested in their analysis of the 1996 European Football Championship when England reached the semi-finals and got knocked out by Germany on penalties (the nearest I have ever got to seeing England win a major trophy as I was born one month after England won the World Cup).

Their research concluded that the overriding theme of British press reports about the 1996 England team was in the form of battlefield and warfare analogies coupled with the English sporting virtues of energy and commitment – words not really used by journalists in the England 2010 World Cup campaign. For instance, in the semi-final against Germany they were “gallant” and played “combative football” with “fighting spirit” – typified by England’s “absolute refusal to surrender to what appeared to be a better team.” Tony Adams and Alan Shearer were both described by the press as “lionhearts”. In the 4-0 demolition of Holland “the lions were rampant” as “England roar(ed) into the quarter-finals.”

Crolley and Hand also examined the press portrayal of the German team. Newspaper reports characterised Germany’s strength, efficiency, and self-belief – also using military metaphors. They also asserted that the German team received more metaphorical references to warfare than any other football team. The “mighty Germany” made “sorties” and “forays” and led “the battle on two fronts.” They prepared to “ambush” England. As a team, they constantly “regroup” and “march on.” Jurgen Klinsmann, Germany’s talismanic striker, was described by the press as “the blond bomber” who will help Germany “to conquer Europe.”

In addition to examining football stories about England and Germany, Crolley and Hand also studied newspaper narratives relating to the football teams of France and Spain. They claim their analysis helps us to understand the mechanisms at work in the construction of national stereotypes (i.e., English fighting spirit, German efficiency, French flair, and Spanish toughness). The language used by newspaper articles about national football matches is “varied, entertaining, highly inventive and often provocative, evoking references to warfare, politics, history, economics and popular culture”. The authors conclude that in many cases, the principal elements of the stereotypes represented by European newspaper stories are the same from country to country.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Luck’s familiar? Football and superstition, by Professor Mark Griffiths

Hands up. How many of you reading this are superstitious when you watch England play a football match? Do you wear your ‘lucky’ England T-Shirt? Carry a lucky charm? Watch all the games in a particular chair or with a particular person? If you are, you are not alone. Even the most rational people can hold superstitious beliefs. The fallibility of human reason is the greatest single source of superstitious belief. Sometimes referred to as a belief in ‘magic’, superstition can cover many spheres such as lucky or unlucky actions, events, numbers and/or sayings, a belief in astrology, the occult, the paranormal, and/ or ghosts. When it comes to watching football it’s probably best to view superstition as a belief that a given action that you do can bring good luck or bad luck to your team when there are no rational or generally acceptable grounds for such a belief.

Surveys suggest that around a third of the UK population are superstitious. The most often reported superstitious behaviours are avoiding walking under ladders, touching wood, and throwing salt over your shoulder. I can’t say I’ve ever done any of those when watching England. There’s also a stereotypical view that there are certain groups within society who tend to hold more superstitious beliefs than what may be considered the norm. These include those involved with sport, the acting profession, miners, fishermen and gamblers. For instance, we did some research on regular bingo players and found that 81% of them had at least one superstitious belief. These beliefs included not opening an umbrella indoors (49%), not walking under ladders (55%), not putting new shoes on a table (60%), touching wood (50%) and not passing someone else on the stairs.

The majority of the population tend to have what are called ‘half-beliefs’. On the whole, people are basically rational and don’t really believe in the effects of superstition. However, in times of uncertainty, stress, and/or perceived helplessness, people seek to regain personal control over events by means of superstitious belief. This often happens in situations like watching (England play) football.

The Dutch psychologist, Professor Willem Wagenaar proposed that in the absence of a known cause, people attribute certain events to abstract causes like luck and chance. Professor Wagenaar differentiates between luck and chance and suggests that luck is more related to an unexpected positive result whereas chance is related to surprising coincidences. Other psychologists suggest that luck may be thought of as the property of a person whereas chance is thought to be concerned with unpredictability. For instance, gamblers appear to exhibit a belief that they have control over their own luck. They may knock on wood to avoid bad luck or carry an object such as a rabbit’s foot for good luck. Another US psychologist, Professor Ellen Langer argued that a belief in luck and superstition not only accounts for causal explanations when playing games of chance, but may also provide a desired element of personal control.

Even if people don’t have strongly held luck and superstitious beliefs, there is some evidence that having these beliefs (“I know it’s going to be our lucky night”, “I’m in my lucky seat we can’t lose”, or “My stars said we’d win”) add more fun and excitement to the event watched or the game being played.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]