Soccer, which is better known the world over as Football, and for the record if you think about it, AMERICAN FOOTBALL players hardly use their feet, is never shy of scandal. With the English national team manager resigning following the England captain being involved in a racism scandal to the Scottish league champions Glasgow Rangers filing for administration, big stories rarely stay in the headlines for long. The story of Leeds United however was started a while ago, yet somehow, the ending keeps being rewritten.
The current version of this story has a new hero, and as always in a good story the background of the hero is vital to the eventual conclusion. On February 18th, Leeds United appointed Neil Warnock as their new manager. Warnock, who has been managing professionally since 1986 joins his 9th team in Leeds United, and possibly his greatest ever challenge. The story of Leeds United's fall from grace is relatively well known; Champions League (semi final) to League 1 (3rd tier of English football) in the short space of 4 years, with an eventual rise back into the Championship (2nd tier of English football). Financial problems, ownership changes, having a cast of players that achieved great success after leaving Leeds including Premiership, Champions League, UEFA cup, FA and League cup winners medals,further highlights the plight of a once giant in the English game.
Enter Neil Warnock, who has a proven track record of being able to take a team back into the promised land of the English Premier League, having done so with both Sheffield United and most recently Queens Park Rangers. For those unfamiliar with his style, I have included two videos, which I warn you now feature a lot of cursing. However, behind the cursing are two fantastic examples of one of the central tenets of sport psychology, Motivation.
Motivation in sport psychology at its heart is split into two different types, which certainly have the ability to interact with each other; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the athlete, and can be the drive to master a task, achieve a set goal or simply make themselves happy, whereas extrinsic motivation are things that come from outside the athlete themselves such as rewards, trophies and praise.
The above videos portray Warnock providing a tremendous amount of extrinsic motivation to his players, and in doing so has the ability to allow each player to find a element of intrinsic motivation which will serve not only the individual, but also the collective team.
After his appointment, Warnock went to watch Leeds take on fellow Championship side Doncaster Rovers. Doncaster led 2 - 0 at half time, when Warnock, not officially in charge of the team until the next day made his way into the Leeds United dressing room. What went on behind closed doors will remain a closely guarded secret, but for the players of Leeds United, it was an introduction to "The Art of War(nock)". Leeds went on to win the game 3-2!
I am not one for making predictions, so whether Warnock will succeed with his task at Leeds remains to be seen, but much like sports, Warnock is most certainly a little bit mental.
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| Warnock in the stands at Leeds Vs Doncaster Credit: AP Photo |
Enter Neil Warnock, who has a proven track record of being able to take a team back into the promised land of the English Premier League, having done so with both Sheffield United and most recently Queens Park Rangers. For those unfamiliar with his style, I have included two videos, which I warn you now feature a lot of cursing. However, behind the cursing are two fantastic examples of one of the central tenets of sport psychology, Motivation.
Motivation in sport psychology at its heart is split into two different types, which certainly have the ability to interact with each other; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the athlete, and can be the drive to master a task, achieve a set goal or simply make themselves happy, whereas extrinsic motivation are things that come from outside the athlete themselves such as rewards, trophies and praise.
The above videos portray Warnock providing a tremendous amount of extrinsic motivation to his players, and in doing so has the ability to allow each player to find a element of intrinsic motivation which will serve not only the individual, but also the collective team.
After his appointment, Warnock went to watch Leeds take on fellow Championship side Doncaster Rovers. Doncaster led 2 - 0 at half time, when Warnock, not officially in charge of the team until the next day made his way into the Leeds United dressing room. What went on behind closed doors will remain a closely guarded secret, but for the players of Leeds United, it was an introduction to "The Art of War(nock)". Leeds went on to win the game 3-2!
I am not one for making predictions, so whether Warnock will succeed with his task at Leeds remains to be seen, but much like sports, Warnock is most certainly a little bit mental.
I actually like Neil Warnock, and you can’t deny that his expletive brand of psychology is at times effective, case in point the Leeds Doncaster game. He can motivate, you do wonder about his tactics though, after he left QPR Joey Barton said “First time in a while we actually have a plan and seem organised.”
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