WPS Needs Psychologists

The most interesting little-known fact about the WPS's fledgling season is that there have been no come-from-behind victories thus far.

Think about that. There are seven teams with 25 games played, and not one come-from-behind victory.

My guess is that this is not just a coincidence.

It seems to be a common trait of the league is that, once a team falls behind, its players give up psychologically.

They still hustle. They still try. But you can almost see the air go out of the balloon. It's on their faces. It's in the only slightly less accurate shots and passes, the only slightly less aggressive play; or, it's the opposite of that: the slightly more desperate play that tends to cause mistakes and fouls.

The bottom line is that WPS players don't know how to cope with trailing. 

Why? It's not an experience they have much exposure to.

Each team has key players from the US Women's National Team. Even the players with no international caps have tended to play for dominant teams in college or on the club level—dominant because of their own talents relative to the rest of the players on the pitch—and they just aren't accustomed to having to play from behind.

The solution: (and I am absolutely serious about this) Each team should hire a team psychologist. 

It's an issue of confidence, of expectations. Those who are familiar with motivational science and the psychology of success understand the law of attraction. You create the future you envision.

That applies not only to the long term future but the immediate future, as well.

Teams and individual players need to spend some time in group therapy talking through what happens in their heads when their teams falls behind. They have to deconstruct the mental process of letdown. They then have to practice positive imaging. They have to teach themselves to visualize themselves scoring, assisting on a perfect goal, and defending in a way that shuts down the opponents' attack.  

Their only thought must be what they are going to do, and how they are going to succeed, not worry about failure. Even subconscious worry about failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A good sports psychologist would be able to train their clients to reflexively visualize the team scoring two goals and taking the lead as a reflex when the opponents go up one goal.

Every time the opponents score, the trailing team needs to visualize and believe without hesitation, qualification, or subconscious doubt of any kind that their team will score one more goal than the opponents.

They will not only be able to visualize the scoreboard with their team ahead, but the plays that will create the goals and the goals, themselves. And they have to visualize their team being ahead when the official blows three long tones on the whistle to end the game.  

Author's note: As a former psychotherapist and a proponent of psychology and motivational science for all people of both genders and in all walks of life when they are experiencing a block of some sort that impedes or impairs the realization of their full potential, I do not consider saying someone "needs a psychologist" as an insult or a judgment of inferiority. Therefore, please be assured this article is not intended to be interpreted as sexist in any respect, or a denunciation of the WPS. Anyone who reads my body of work at Bleacher Report will recognize that I am an advocate of women in professional sports and of the WPS, and a critic of sexism.