Top-level athletes maintain a “hunger” to win throughout their careers, but that motivation also evolves and is associated with different issues, as Leo Messi has done, for example, who remains a born competitor but who in the last world cup has changed his style to become the “father” of his teammates.
This is what the psychologist Juan Carlos Campillo, who is the coordinator of the Master’s Coaching and Sports Psychology at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR), has told EFE, where he contributes his work experience alongside great sports figures.
Campillo has been a psychologist in national teams of different sports, with which he has attended the World Championship, the European Championship and the Olympic Games, and on an individual level he has worked, among others, with the Spanish badminton champion Carolina Marín.
Although he cannot reveal some names, he has detailed, on an individual level he has worked with soccer players -he was also in the Spain team in the 2018 World Cup- from three of the semifinalist teams of the last World Championship: Argentina, Morocco and France.
From his experience with highly competitive athletes, he knows that the first feelings that go through his head when winning a tournament like the World Cup are “satisfaction, relaxation and liberation” and at that moment they must pay attention “to the negative part” that can arrive with that triumph “that of not training as much as before or not taking care of yourself at the same level” as before.
However, “this is not something that happens to those who are natural competitors in their disciplines” such as Leo Messi, Fernando Alonso or Cristiano Ronaldo, “who have won everything or almost everything in their respective sports and they have achieved it because they are hungry, thirst and desire to be the best, and after winning, they return to full training because they want to maintain that line”, he pointed out.
In addition, he explained, this type of athlete “do not want fans to say that they were not that good or that their success was a moment of luck.”
Those “out of the ordinary” have two types of motivation: extrinsic, “which has to do with external factors, such as recognition, results or having a title” and intrinsic, “which is the pleasure of doing what you do, enjoying , wanting to improve yourself or lengthen your maximum state of form”.
For him, Leo Messi is an example of evolution in these two types of motivation, since in recent times he has spent “motivating himself by making others play, contributing to the team, or having the team respect him and see him as a reference “And that is what he has shown in the World Cup, when he has behaved like a “father” to his teammates.
The family, he pointed out, is “very important and fundamental”, since “these types of athletes need a refuge that gives them peace of mind, where they can be themselves, because the rest of the time they are public figures”.
“Family balance allows you to manage that pressure of being a character, an idol or a legend, and allows you to be an ordinary person”, he has detailed, but when they practice their sport “they take that concept of family to the field of game” as “it has been seen with Messi, who has not acted like another player, but like his father”, since “that is what his children needed”.
The Argentine star, he added, has also shown on several occasions that he is a religious person, and in this case, “faith can be an important motivating factor because it makes the athlete connect with being grateful, having a responsibility for what has achieved” and “that, at the same time, leads him not to relax”.
In any case, he remarked, athletes at that level need to be surrounded by “a good team” that “requires and helps them” and in that team there must be “someone who provides personal balance, who collaborates in managing emotions and of ego” because “they need to be aware that they are very good one day and very bad the next”.
He has also highlighted the importance of having a person to help them achieve a personal balance, manage their emotions, their ego and not believe that they are “very bad one day and very good the next”.
One of the jobs of these professionals, as he himself has done, is to advise athletes on their way from a high level to a lower level.
Thus, Campillo has detailed, in general, when high-level footballers or athletes move from the best competitions to other lower-level ones “they see it as a step backwards in their career” and “in fact, most only do it when they believe they are not capable of competing on the best stages in the world”.
However, he tells them that they can “use other motivations to continue in the elite” beyond whether they compete at their best level or not “such as continuing to be a benchmark for society” and “that does mean having a responsibility that it forces you to make an effort and keep your ego and humility in place”, he concluded.
