Another major international tournament following England, and the same emotions, the same patterns, the same outcome. England arrives with all the expectations and pressures of the nation, which is inevitably too much to handle leading to the same old outcome.  

The opening verse from ‘Three Lions’ sums up England perfectly; “Everyone seems to know the score, they’ve seen it all before. They just know, they’re so sure. That England’s gonna throw it away, gonna blow it away. But I know they can play”. We all know this team and the previous contain brilliant players and are a brilliant team, full of stars from the biggest clubs in the world; Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City. Premier League winners, Champions League winners, and at times Ballon D’Or winners. So, why does this team “throw it away” so often.  

Over the past few years there has been a trend of England sitting deeper and having less possession in high pressure games. Spain (2024), Italy (2021), Argentina (2026) and Croatia (2018) are notable games, but this trend can be seen whenever England paly a top 10 nation. In England's last 9 games in the World Cup or Euros they have had less than 50% possession in 5 of those. During these 9 games England had only 34.9% possession vs Spain in the Euro 2024 final (BBC, 2024) and only 38% possession vs Italy in the Euro 2020 final (ESPN, 2021). Additionally, after taking the lead against Argentina in the 2026 World Cup semi-final England had only 12% possession (ESPN, 2026). 

These games are obviously creating high levels of pressure, but why does the pressure of these games cause the results we see on the pitch, and what can sport psychology do to help? To begin with, there are multiple theories which could help us explain how pressure can result in the lack of risk taking and reserved behaviors. However, one leading theory which I believe explains this very well is conservation of resource (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2011). This theory explains our response to pressure through the loss, maintenance and gaining of resources. There are several principles in this theory but one that links closely to the issues seen within the England men’s team is principle 1; the primacy of resource loss. What this means is that losing resources has a greater psychological impact on individuals and teams than gaining resources of an equivalent value (conceding vs scoring a goal). The principle suggests that people are especially motivated to protect (defend) the resources (1 goal lead) they already have. So, the higher the pressure placed on a team the more the focus is to prevent loss, and so this could explain why when England are in high pressure matches and situations, they are less likely to attack and try to gain ‘resources’ and instead sit deep to protect what they already have. 

So, how can sport psychology help with this? If this situation is viewed through the lense of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), we can use the ACT Hexaflex model to help break down the issue. This model has 6 elements, the details of which will be covered in my next post. The two main ones which I think can be applied here are ‘values’ and ‘committed action’. The first step here is the ‘values’ element, which is where we get the athlete (or in this case team) to think about their core values, deeply held beliefs and principles which guide their behaviour. Once these are fully understood and agreed upon by all members of the team, we can move onto the second element; ‘committed action’. This is where the team chooses to engage in behaviors that align with their values and core principles, in a way which moves them closer to their goals. This could help the issues within the England men's national team specifically by helping reduce the fear of making mistakes that ends with losing ’resources’ (Edmondson, 1999; Shoenfelt, 2011). If the team can have agreed values based around attacking styles of play and commit to the actions that those values align with, then this could create the confidence in the team to stop them sitting deep in high pressure situations and play with the handbrake off, without fear.  

So, could sport psychology be the solution to England's tournament woes? I believe so. Of course, there are other factors which will affect how England perform at major tournaments, but I believe more attention should be given to the psychological side of the game within English game. 

References 

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly, 44(2), 350-383. 

Hobfoll, S. E. (2011). Conservation of resources theory: Its implication for stress, health, and resilience. The Oxford handbook of stress, health, and coping, 127, 147. 

Shoenfelt, E. L. (2011). “Values Added” teambuilding: a process to ensure understanding, acceptance, and commitment to team values. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 1(3), 150-160.