Soccer: England turn to mind games in bid to beat penalty shoot-out jinx

Gerrard began seeing Dr Peters after sustaining a groin avulsion at a time when he feared for his career. Photo / Getty Images

From the moment Steven Gerrard said yesterday that Dr Steve Peters had helped him find the best form of his career, the England team's new sports psychiatrist had an advantage that no predecessor in that role has ever enjoyed.

With the endorsement of the captain, a thought was placed in the head of every player who boards the plane to Brazil in June. If he could do it for Gerrard, then why not them too?

England's mental frailties have been manifest in major tournaments, from untimely sending offs to excruciating penalty misses. If Peters can play any part in remedying that, he will be considered worth every penny.

In the notoriously conservative world of English soccer, the role of the psychiatrist has been treated largely with suspicion until now. The role of guru to an England manager was damaged for years by Glenn Hoddle's association with faith healer Eileen Drewery in the 1990s.

The woman who famously laid her hands on the head of Ray Parlour at one England gathering - only to be asked for a short back and sides - did much, unintentionally, to undermine Hoddle. Drewery was a world away from the likes of Peters but it tainted the notion of expert advice in tending to the mind of the player.

Sven Goran Eriksson had the Swedish professor Willi Railo, with whom he wrote a mind-numbingly dull book on soccer management. Steve McClaren enlisted the help of his own sports psychology guru, Bill Beswick, whom Gary Neville spoke to regularly as part of his preparation for match days. But none so far has carried the credibility of Peters.

Gerrard urged the press yesterday to follow his lead and read Peters' book, The Chimp Paradox, and said he had been convinced to do so by reading interviews with Olympic gold medallists Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy acclaiming the psychiatrist's work.

"He can teach you what goes on in your head and help you with your preparation - I didn't know what was going on in my head until I saw him."

Gerrard began seeing Peters having sustained a groin avulsion, the very serious tearing away of muscle from bone, in March 2011, at a time when he feared for his career.

"I was going from one surgeon to another and getting told different things and different opinions and I was a little bit lost," Gerrard said. "Without being a drama queen, it was a very important stage in my career. It was one of the physios at Liverpool that suggested I might need a bit of help from a psychologist so I said: 'Who's the best?' and I was told he was."

"I think it is important that I don't heap too much pressure on to him and suggest we will now be better at a World Cup and suddenly we will never miss a penalty any more or no player will ever get sent off or lose his temper," said manager Roy Hodgson, who oversaw a bland 1-0 victory over Denmark yesterday.

As a key member of the British cycling fraternity, Team Sky and acclaimed by British snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, Peters is already a well-known name in sport. He is about to find out, however, that nothing sends one's public profile soaring quite like an association with the national soccer team.

At least, one would argue, he is equipped to deal with that.

- Independent