Have you heard that World Cup Teams are under Pressure?

May 25th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

One surefire sign that the World Cup is almost upon us is the increasing number of stories being written about the pressure players and teams are under to perform well for their countries. Journalists love to write about pressure for some reason. There are a few stories today that illustrate this.

The first involves Mexico coach Ricardo Lavolpe who says that the United States face no pressure because most people in their country are more concerned with American football then soccer. The money quote from Lavolpe:

“My sister, my aunt and my grandmother could play on that team,” said Lavolpe, criticizing the depth of the U.S. soccer team. “There is little pressure. Americans watch football and baseball.”

If Lavolpe’s female family members are so good, they should have suited up during qualifying. After all, the United States did finish ahead of Mexico.

But his point about the pressure the US team faces is somewhat valid. Bruce Arena probably has the most job security of any coach in the World Cup. The media in the US does not scrutinize the team’s every move and an early exit won’t be cause for national alarm like it might be in other countries. That doesn’t mean the players don’t feel pressure from within to do well, however.

Spain coach Luis Aragones isn’t in the same position as Arena. People in Spain expect his team to go to Germany and to win. Case in point, fans are showing up to Spain’s training camp and vocally expressing their opinions about the players. So much so that Aragones has asked them to shut up and let the boys concentrate on their work. You could chalk this up to someone being a bit under pressure. Or maybe Spain just needs to close their practices to the public.

In France, coach Raymond Domenech is blaming backup keeper Gregory Coupet’s meltdown yesterday on the pressure and stress of the moment.

“There was a problem,” Domenech said Thursday. “Gregory Coupet had a moment of stress and he cracked. Stress exists for everyone, Greg left. But he came back of his own accord and no one made a big deal out of it.”

If there is one position where I wouldn’t want my player to crack because of stress it is goalkeeper, but I’m sure Coupet and France will try their best to move on, while the French media tries its best to stir up trouble.

In the end, the issue of pressure seems a bit overrated to me. The media and public scrutiny might be greater in some countries than others, but every player and coach is going to feel pressure when they take the field during the World Cup. Some will handle it better than others.

And I guarantee that at least one big team’s early exit will be blamed on the pressure of the moment. Journalists love to write about that excuse as well.

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Mr. X

Agreed. The pressure is generated from within. The great players and teams know how to overcome it. It is a convenient excuse for teams like Italy when they lose. No one talks about it when they win.
wendall

If you’re a journalist hunting for an angle you could turn the pressure on the US around, saying that US Soccer is pinning the visibility of soccer in the US on the national team doing well. If it stumbles early, then soccer falls in popularity in the TV watching public. So the hopes of US attracting and keeping young kids in the game is dependent on the national team going deep into the tourney.

But the number of pundits thinking they know Bruce Arena’s job better than he does is substantially less than in other countries and that certainly makes life easier day-to-day.
http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2006/big-question-which-current-coach-was-the-best-player.html#comments Pedro P

That’s all very easy to say. But it’s the end of the seasson and players now will play for their country and listen to their anthem before starting a match. This counts.

There is huge, huge stress and pressure going around all this. It has alweyas been, actually…

About the spanish maniphestations, that’s the “norm” in there. Just like in Portugal. I could go on with it…

I mean, football is not only a huge $ lobby, it’s really a pashion in there. You might not realize it in the US, but a full country stops because of a single match. You might even believe this to be exclusive for Brazil or Argentina, etc…

About Mexico’s coach: right now there’s something going on in Portugal’s blog about “coaching mentality” (so many players, so many…). It could easily be also called pure technique vs hard work and organization.

You are the first to laugh about the US ranking. But you’re also the fisrt to complaint when somebody says team US are no good… ;-)

US, like so many others that have reached so far, lack what others have (and have almost only been represented by Brazil in the winners shelf): PURE TALENT AND TECHNIQUE! That’s why he said it. That’s why Croatia’s coach said, in 1996, he admired the Portuguese team and not the German. That’s NOT what wins games. That’s what people love to see.
rescorpione17

i don’t remember once that italians name pressure as being one of the reasons for not peforming well ..as matter of fact many foreigners playing seria A complain there is too much pressure …we are talking about being distracted or jinksed by people who supposedly should support you that’s what pisses and turns italian players off not pressure ..finally if we are talking about penalties well that kind of pressure hits anyone at any given time.. but i wouldn’t deny there is a bad record for Italy on that part..