What does a sport and performance psychologist do? 

‘Helping people to develop and to improve their performance. Whether that is on the football pitch or in the classroom, in my role as a lecturer at Fontys, where I help train the mental coaches of the future. Supporting people to develop in a positive way, to deal with mental pressure and to bring out the best in themselves – that gives me a great deal of energy.’ 

‘Ideally, I do this in the dynamic environment of sport. But it can just as well be with students in primary teacher education.’ 

As a youth coach at PSV and Willem II, how did you ensure that children enjoyed themselves? 

‘It is great that children want to win. They learn that something is at stake, that they have to do it together, and that they need to work out how to organise that as a team. Almost all children love to play and want to take part. Some of them also want to perform. By playing football together, children learn a great deal about society. 

Teamwork, having fun, creating success, dealing with disappointment – these are fantastic experiences for children, also because there are no real consequences. After all, what difference does it make if your under‑9 or under‑12 team wins or loses, or is promoted or relegated? They are simply very valuable life lessons.’ 

Where do things sometimes go wrong? 

‘As long as we leave that with the children, things tend to go well. But parents on the touchline are often the problem. They start attaching consequences to a match. If the team does not win, or falls behind, many parents, driven by emotion, become very vocal. 

This gives children the wrong example. They also receive conflicting instructions from parents and from the coach, and that does not help them.’ 

What do you teach parents? 

‘I once did an exercise where I asked the players to write down what they did and did not like about their parents’ behaviour on the touchline. I shared the results with the parents. They found it very confronting, but it was effective. Above all, parents should simply be there and offer encouragement.’ 

What trends do you see? 

‘What strikes me on the touchline when I watch my own children – and I also hear this from, for example, students in primary teacher education – is that parents are increasingly giving their children the message that the problem lies with someone else, not with the child. So they approach the coach or the teacher to challenge them or to complain. 

Yet they could also say to their child: perhaps there is something in what that teacher or coach is saying, because they basically have your best interests at heart. Have you thought about that? And how can we help you with it?’ 

Is taking part more important than winning? 

‘I know coaches at the highest level who do not talk about winning. Instead, they say: we are going to play the game as well and as enjoyably as possible, and the result will then be a logical consequence of how we have played. In that way, they place the emphasis on enjoyment of the game and on developing the way of playing, which reduces the mental pressure to have to win.’ 

‘Jürgen Klopp once said: I do not see myself as a winner, but as someone who keeps trying. I have lost more matches, more Champions League finals, than I have won. But every time, I try to take something from it and do better next time.’ 

You completed the Master’s in Sport and Performance Psychology at the UvA. How was that experience? 

‘I learnt an enormous amount there from lecturers such as Edwin van Hooft. And I am very grateful to Gerald Weltevreden for having initiated that track. With all their expertise, they make a huge contribution to this growing branch of psychology and to mental resilience.’ 

What is your dream? 

‘Ultimately, I would like, as a performance psychologist, to support a football team – for example the Dutch national team at a European Championship or World Cup. That would be fantastic. 

But my work will also have been successful if as many children as possible have an enjoyable and educational time on the football pitch. That they learn to deal with tension and pressure in an environment without real consequences, so that later in society they can also perform with self‑confidence.’