The curse of the opponent

In my recent conversations and work with some sports teams, a realisation has become even more apparent – focus too much on the opposition at your peril. In chatting to a professional coach recently, he showed me the amount of analysis they do on their opponents, and I was blown away. Of course this is vital, could well be the difference between winning and losing and should be done. But it really was amazing to see how much information the players need to digest before a game. I also worked recently with a Waterpolo team who has to play in a 3 day tournament involving at least 8 different matches against varying opposition. The difficulty in this format is getting information on your opponents, and knowing when the ‘big’ games are. The team involved seemed to attach a lot of meaning to who their opponents were in terms of how ‘up’ for the game they would be.

Both of these situations affirmed my thinking that although one should always look to be as prepared as possible in analysing and respecting your opponents, your primary focus must always be on yourself. So often teams and players attach a huge amount of meaning to their opponents, play poorly, only for them to look back at the game afterwards and realise that they could easily have had a better result. This is as a result of forming beliefs on opponents that dominate the mind. How often do we see sides perform at a lower level when playing a lower- strength opponent? How often do we see teams underperform in games where the opponents are perceived to be stronger? I can think of many occasions where this has taken place. This often lies in a large focus on result and not the process of obtaining the result. When this takes place, teams will alter their playing intensity or style based on whether they think they have a chance of winning, or whether they think they should win the game or not. I believe that at amateur level, this is extremely prevalent.

So what is the solution you may ask? The solution lies within the team itself. A team with a strong vision and purpose is an absolute must. Without this, you will always be vulnerable to over-emphasising the opposition and weakening your own focus. What is even more important though is having a team that is wholly process-focused. A team that aims to play a certain way and attaches meaning to their way of playing and the values they keep as a team is far more likely to be internally focused and mentally ‘on-the-ball’ for every game. One needs to remember that a team’s own play is far easier to control than that of the opposition, and as we have all heard, teams need to place an emphasis on controlling the controllables. In the pressured environment of sport we should always be looking at ways to stay calm and comfortable and it is for this reason that our primary focus as sportsmen and women needs to be on self and our own standards.

Have a great sporting week and let’s hope the Boks and WP are completely internally-focused and ready to produce their best!