I wake up nervous. Try the comfort of a lucky shirt, perhaps the same shirt you wore the last time your team won. Frowning or nodding during meetings. Your eyes are on the clock. It’s finally time to kick off. Hmm. The fear is only increasing. Wait – the World Cup was supposed to be fun?
Supporters of both teams are in attendance as Argentina and Spain prepare to face each other for the championship title this Sunday.
“Honestly, I’ve been shaking for the last few days,” 23-year-old Barbara Laura told CNN in central Madrid before the match. “If we lose, I’m going to cry on the curb. All I can do is open a bottle of rum, drink it straight, and cry.”
“So much is at stake, so much of a person’s mood,” says Pablo Nigro, president of the Argentine Society of Sports Psychology. “We all seem to feel like we’re playing and that raises our expectations. The team isn’t just losing. We’re all losing. And we lose in a raw and painful way, if I may say so.”
For true fans, anxiety is part of the World Cup experience beyond game day. As Freud said, “We are never more vulnerable to suffering than when we love.”
More than a month after the tournament began, one Italian friend is still bitter about the fate of his beloved Azzurri, who failed to qualify this year. “It’s even more painful to watch the World Cup without them now. It feels numb and I kind of hate seeing all my international friends rooting for their team,” he says.
Don’t bring that up with the English. Many still can’t talk about Wednesday’s last-minute loss. However, one fan confessed that he felt a sense of relief when England finished the tournament to help him escape the emotional rollercoaster.
Those who are really struggling with the mental strain of the game may want to take a look at the pages of Argentina, whose love for soccer is perhaps matched only by a passion for psychoanalysis. According to often-cited statistics from the World Health Organization, Argentina has 222 psychologists per 100,000 people, compared to 30 in the United States and 48 in France. CNN spoke to several people, many of whom are avid soccer fans.
Argentina struggled in this World Cup with a series of cliffhanger matches. La Albiceleste appeared to barely escape the opening game between Cape Verde and Switzerland, only to escape in extra time. Fans sweated again in Wednesday’s semi-final against England, waiting until the final minutes to score.
The day after the match, the front page of the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nacion hinted at frayed nerves, saying that he had had a sleepless night and that Spain was “already on his mind.” But suffering, and the resilience that comes from overcoming it, is part of Argentine culture.
Nigro says athletes who suffer from anxiety are trained to engage in relaxation and visualization techniques that give them a sense of control, but also points out that nerves “activate” players in ways that improve their play on the pitch.
He has other advice for armchair attendees who get heart palpitations just thinking about the game, noting that breathing exercises and positive thinking are unlikely to help eager, excited fans.
“When people call me and ask about their anxiety, I encourage them to focus their thoughts on the broader moment. The fact that we are living through this situation is also a privilege. Not just the 90 or 120 minutes of Sunday’s game, but the very fact that we have a final game ahead of us.”
He also encourages patients to recognize the fellowship of fans. “Seeing the person next to you in great shape, seeing them wearing their national team jerseys on your way to work, walking down the street and seeing the flag. Those little things disappear on Monday or Tuesday, win or lose.”
If you haven’t already gotten up and started screaming at the screen during a match, he says it’s a good idea to try to physically release your energy.
“If you are very nervous, try to relieve the tension a little by going for a walk, doing some small jumps, something that is impossible not to experience. During the match, from the first moment … well, until the 90th minute, you will be nervous. I mean, you will be nervous, and this is what you have to expect.”
And it’s superstition. Desperate to do something, many Argentina fans turn to magic. On the day of a World Cup game, the family of a CNN colleague puts anything related to the opposing team in the freezer. Swiss chocolate for the war against Switzerland, an album by the Beatles that was loved when England became the enemy.
Others insist on sitting in the exact same spot where they saw their previous victory. When Argentina is on the back foot, even TV sports commentators encourage viewers to switch seats in order to reverse their team’s fortunes.
“In a way, we’re trying to control the uncontrollable,” Nigro says. “These rituals make us at least feel a little less anxious and feel like we’re contributing our grain of sand to helping the team win.”
Argentina’s culture of talk therapy may translate mental suffering into words on a therapist’s couch, but fans may be reassured that professionals are trained to translate nerves into on-field strategy.
“When you put on the jersey and step on the pitch, you start to overcome stress,” says Argentine sports psychologist Jorge Rocco. When Argentina played England, he said, they used the energy from their early struggles to get back into the game.
“I was watching the match with the Spaniard and I said to him, ‘I hope England score a goal,’ and he asks me why, because the first few minutes unfolded like a chess game. The teams studied each other and nobody took any risks.
“But once Argentina got emotional they said ‘(England) can’t have what’s ours’ and started playing another game.”
