What Even Is Mentality?

Mentality is a key word in elite sport, and it was a much mentioned word after the 2026 FIFA World Cup quarter final between Norway and England.

Immediately after the full-time whistle, ITV Sport reporter Gabriel Clarke interviewed the England head coach Thomas Tuchel, who was clearly still emotional, unhappy and bristling at the disappointing performance his side had delivered, despite managing to win the match 2-1 in extra time. Clarke asked about whether there was a mentality issue among the England players, and this appeared to irk Tuchel further, who fiercely rejected that there was any mentality issue, instead citing the number of technical mistakes, not being fast enough, the players making it difficult for themselves, some avoidance of the conditions and their opponents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAvUS95FPx4

As a seasoned England supporter, watching from a sofa hundreds of miles away, it was clear that England were second best for large periods of the game. They did not deserve to win over the 90 minutes of the game. But we all know that the best team in terms of possession and control of the game, does not always win. This is why we love and hate the game. The game is decided only by goals, and how many each team scores. It can be unfair.

You can have all the possession of the ball and control of the game, you can play entirely in the opponent's half, but if you don't score a goal then it doesn't matter. (I recently experienced this floundering feeling when playing my first game of chess in many years. You can take lots of opposition pieces, but you still have to find a way to achieve a check-mate to finish the game). Bellingham, twice England's saviour, shrugged off the accusations of his manager, delivered third-hand by the reporter, and spoke about the need to 'win ugly'. It made me reflect on the frequently unspoken truth. Players and coaches of all levels can leave a field feeling good with themselves if they have performed to the best of their ability. Regardless of whether their team has won, drawn, or lost. If they feel that they have underperformed, whether they have won, drawn, or lost, they will feel less good with themselves. The result of the team actually doesn't matter so much. In terms of group mentality or team mentality, such openly expressed selfishness is dangerous. That's why we don't hear it so much and players and managers will talk to reporters after the match about the result being all that matters. Was there some deflection by Tuchel, and a suggestion in his bristling response that he hadn't performed brilliantly as head coach? There were a dizzying number of tactical shifts and substitutions, after all. Did they all work as well as hoped? Was it all on the players? Bellingham's conscience in contrast appeared understandably clear. Norway Mentality

Mentality was naturally just as important for Norway as it did for England, particularly in extra-time. Norway had never reached a World Cup quarter final before. This was new territory for them. They had wonderfully and deservedly beaten Brazil in the previous round, appearing extremely well organised and commanding throughout. As they did here against England. But dangerously, reaching this quarter final point almost felt like victory enough for them and their supporters.

When Jude Bellingham pounced on a goalkeeping error to score his and England's second goal at the beginning of the extra time period, the Norway side appeared to wilt, not quite surrendering to defeat in that moment, but not far off. There was an energy-sapped kind of resignation. Of course the stifling heat they'd had to battle for so long was also a factor. But in conceding that key goal at a key time, there was almost an acceptance of 'not good enough' belief that saw them struggle to fashion more goalscoring chances.

Given their dominance up to that second goal, I still thought that Norway would at least force a penalty shootout. Then their star striker Erling Haaland was substituted, to the shock of most people. That served as a symbolic concession, more damaging in how it looked than in practically how it changed the team. This was not to be. Another affirmation of 'not good enough'.

After the game, there was a constructive and pragmatic Norwegian narrative around honouring their achievements in the tournament, how much they'd given their people to celebrate and be proud of that summer. Perhaps how they exceeded expectations.

But I felt it could so easily have been so much better, with a little adjustment in belief that can maybe only come from long term experience and repetition. I felt they could have reached the final, with that extra serving of entitlement and swagger so majestically personified by Bellingham, the idea that they absolutely had a right to be there. They did not need to be so modest and self effacing.

Their organisation was not ostensibly attractive to watch, but it was as much their distinguishing superpower as an explosive Haaland finish. It appeared hard to play against.

Bias, Attachment and History As a supporter, there are all kinds of mentality biases involved when watching a team you have a long term relationship with. It's complex rollercoaster attachment often built over years and decades, and attachment doesn't come bias-free. One of these relates to the inner critic we all carry around with us, that drainingly negative voice. How we can be our own worst critic, and how we feel our own fragility and frailty more sensitively than anyone else.

Even though it seems like, surely, everyone must be able to observe how nervy and lacking in assurance our goalkeeper is, how it's achingly transparent the defenders don't quite have that sharpness of movement or crisp assertiveness when passing out from the back. And equally, how it's crushingly obvious that we are not as confident speaking in a large social group as we are speaking one-to-one. It is so easy to criticise when you are deeply familiar through history and experience, when you see all the flaws. When you care. Self image comes in here too, and the ability or not to challenge a long established way of seeing ourselves. Consider how competition shapes self image, from sibling rivalry or parent rivalry, to the school playground, to the classroom, to being picked last for a team or finishing last in a race, to educational and professional achievement, to friendship and dating. Consider being brutally branded a 'loser', or the commonly held idea that you never win anything.

Mentality in a moment of high stress is a challenge we all encounter. Mentality on a football pitch involves at least 22 separate individual mentalities, so it feels oversimplified and over-reductive to discuss it in such a singularised term. Even though it often is. So much is lazily oversimplified and over-reductive in media coverage of elite sport, possibly because those defining margins are so slim. Possibly because that's what we expect. Group mentality is a wildly complex combination of psychological factors, with Belief the captain and guiding force.

Whether you're a player, a coach, a reporter or supporter, any person in a stressful moment, there is an integral internal tussle: presence and performance versus absence and fear. This is stress.

It's essential to being alive and feeling alive.