Let’s take a look at something called the mere presence effect and how it can be applied to footballers. This is one of my first threads of applying psychological ‘theories’ into the footballing world. Feedback and comments are therefore greatly appreciated.

Before we get into explaining the mere presence effect it’s important to know two things; arousal and dominant respons.

In the world of psychology arousal is seen as a physio- and psychological reaction to a stimulus. Simply said: anything you notice causes arousal.

The dominant response is the response that’s given the fastest and easiest to a stimulus. Simple example: pulling back your hand when touching a hot stove.

Now that we know these two things, it’s a lot easier to understand the mere presence effect.

When you’re being watched by an audience it will cause arousal. After all it’s rather difficult to ignore all those eyes focusing on you. This increased arousal makes it more likely that one will show the dominant response.

For simple tasks this is not an issue, but for more difficult tasks it is. Running through a room without any obstacles while being chased (arousal) is easy. Now try running through a room you’ve never seen while it’s filled with obstacles.

Football is a different story though.

Once you’ve played football for a long time and on such a high level, it’s very likely that doing so has become your dominant response. It’s like Robben who scored countless goals while cutting inside and curling it in. He can dream that move, it became a part of him.

Similar is how Busquets often avoids pressure with some magical moves. He often does this during big matches, add to this that the opposing players are pressing him (even more arousal). He mastered this while it’s also noticeable that other players have not.

So the arousal of playing in front thousands of cheering fans, on top of it being a big game, could cause the best players to shine even more. In my opinion the greatest example of this would be Andrés Iniesta (Yes, even the Dutch respect him).

Now the link to the current situation. Players are playing in empty and silent stadiums, do you think this affects them? What about the champions league this year?Supposedly the biggest stage in the world. I felt like it was somewhat disappointing, what about you?