Tag Archive for 'Juventus'

The psychological situation of Juventus may be interesting to understand, as in my opinion it demonstrates an established idea of psychology. The idea would be that when expectations are disappointed by not having achieved the result for which until recently they were striving, subsequent performances are undermined by the establishment of the thought that there is nothing more to be done.

In the absence of direct knowledge this is a hypothesis, which seems to me in any case quite probable. No longer able to fight to try to win the championship, Juventus has reverted to its usual tired way of playing, which needs to find itself in trouble to find the motivation to change.

It is curious that quality players fall into this psychological trap, created by themselves, without putting in place forms of resistance to this motivational fall. A team should not reason in this way, which lead to losing to teams obviously of lower levels, but this is of no use if the opponents are playing and they are limited to ordinary and slow management of the game.

This mental regression of the players should be countered by the coach and staff. It was seen to have lasted for at least three games after the defeat to Inter. That’s more than 270 minutes played at the least worst. How can players and team justify to themselves individually and as a collective this prolonged negative moment?It sounds to me like Al Pacino’s words as a coach in Any given Sunday when yhe tells the players, “Either we rise up as a collective or we will be annihilated individually.”

Juventus’ problem is one of continuity of play and the inability to break out of the insecurities brought about by the reduced quality of some players. Juventus’ DNA is to play to win the competitions it participates in, starting with the individual games. Not only the past but also the recent history of 10 consecutive championships are proof of this.

In winning teams when there are problems of lack of commitment or fears emerge, it usually happens that the most representative players talk in the locker room or the coach himself and these problems are solved as pride, the desire to win and the will to prove that one is superior to these difficulties are leveraged. This is what is not currently happening in Juventus, as it is a team almost entirely devoid of champions and where many of the starters have never won anything.

In turn of Allegri was used to working with players who were easy to talk to, explain what was expected and they put it into action. Having Juventus now have players who are not used to winning but feel an obligation to do so by wearing this jersey, the mental block and insecurity manifest themselves as the gap between how they evaluate themselves and expectations is too wide.

Allegri’s leadership style is not tuned to leading a group, lacking leaders, that starts well in games but then fades away. The reason is that those who lead excellent groups have difficulty leading teams that instead repetitively lose. This is an interesting issue I was confronted with when I went from working with winning athletes to athletes who did not have this mindset.

The topic is an open one.

Gratitude and solidarity are two values that are absolutely not trivial, indeed indispensable in any team. They represent a necessary factor to keep a team united, especially in moments of crisis like those Juventus is going through. If the head and the heart are the basic elements of the success of a group, the first concerns tactics and the second refers to the values that support a team. Putting the group before the interests of individuals, wanting to give back what the club has given is not rhetoric, nor is wanting to feel united in the difficulties of teammates, the coach and the team.

The sense of belonging is often associated by the rhetoric published in the media to the lack of pride of the teams and the lack of respect towards the jersey that you wear.

Instead, it is a fundamental concept underlying team cohesion in any organizational environment. Its relevance was focused on by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who to build a high-performance, world-class culture developed a performance-value matrix to guide GE’s rise. Welch’s matrix assesses people along two critical dimensions:

• Performance: how well the person leads and achieves important results
• Values: how well the person embodies and exemplifies the team’s core values

Welch and GE executives have been evaluating employees and managers along the Performance-Values Matrix for years to see how well they performed and how well they fit GE’s culture. As a result, any coach can adapt and adopt this practical and proven Values-Performance Matrix to evaluate, rank and coach team players.

“You never walk alone”  say at Liverpool … let’s think about it.