Why Arsenal and Croatia Star Eduardo Will Never Be the Same Again

We all remember that incident, when, in a Premier League clash at St. Andrews, Birmingham City defender Martin Taylor broke the leg of Eduardo da Silva, the Arsenal striker.

And we all know that since then, Eduardo has not been the same player he once was.

He seems to have lost confidence, become less inclined to go in for 50-50 challenges both on the ground and in the air, and overall his striking ability appears to have diminished somewhat.

Eduardo also seems to have a greater tendency to dive, with the most notable example being the UEFA Champions League playoff against Celtic, where the Croatian was charged by Europe's governing body, UEFA , for "deceiving the referee."

Of course, for a person that has suffered an open dislocation on their left ankle as well as a broken left fibula due to playing football, the aforementioned actions are perfectly natural.

But the question is, will Eduardo ever return to his glory days?

His glory days being when he had just signed for Arsenal , having completed a £7.5million move from NK Dinamo Zagreb after scoring 83 goals in 123 appearances for the Croatian giants.

And the answer to that question is no, he probably won't.

Why? Because it has been over year since his comeback and he still is not the same player. That's over a year spent with the club's sports psychologist, amongst others, using techniques such as cognitive dissonance .

Eduardo may have scored nine goals in 24 appearances and made five assists since his return to action on Feb. 16 2009, but those stats prove very favourable, as the quality of his finishing, aerial ability and tactical forward running have all decreased since that leg break on Feb. 23 2008.

And the reduced quality of his skills is down to low confidence, which in turn is down to a negative attitude to certain aspects of play on the pitch, such as risky situations like sliding in at the back post to score (where you could collide with a player or the post and seriously injury yourself) or challenging for a header in the penalty area.

These risky situations are the type of scenarios where, if you get it right, you take home all the glory, but if you fail, it will have a negative effect on the team and you can seriously get injured.

After failing in a risky situation and getting a broken leg two years ago, naturally Eduardo would have low confidence and a need to avoid failure (n.Af) .

The subsequent effect this has is that Eduardo will not get into those risky yet glorious situations as he doesn't want to fail or get injured.

Such behaviour, however, which coaches and fellow players in all sports dislike because it dramatically reduces the chances of winning, can be eradicated using techniques like persuasive communication and the aforementioned cognitive dissonance.

In Eduardo's case, cognitive dissonance would be the technique used for the desired effect, but two years after that incident, it seems little, if any progress has been made.

Therefore meaning if the sports psychologist doesn't perform a miracle soon, Eduardo da Silva will never be that great player he once was for Arsenal, Dinamo Zagreb, and Croatia .