The Emotional Game - Inspiration

   For this weeks blog I'll focus on the role of the manager, and how they inspire their players. 

 Trash, Elliott, Maruskin & Cassidy, (2010), outlined two different frameworks of inspiration, inspiration to do something, and inspiration to become something. There are two main managers that the media like to claim have a great effect on their team by 'inspiring' their players, they are Jose Mourinho the real Madrid manager, and Sunderland manager Paolo Di Canio. Even googling simply 'Jose Mourinho Inspiration' will yield 4.4 million results.  

The effects of Jose Mourinho's apparent inspiration on his players is incredibly apparent given the results he has got from his team, but how does the inspiration offered by Paolo Di Canio reflect on the findings and assumptions from Thrash et al.'s study?

 When Paolo Di Canio first became manager at Sunderland, they were playing incredibly poorly, and looked certain to be relegated. The first game under his control Sunderland lost 2-1 away to Chelsea  but that still wasn't a bad result considering. The following game they played Newcastle, their rivals who have , on paper, a much stronger team and squad. They won an emphatic 0-3, and Di Canio was sure to celebrate. Many media agencies cited the effect of Di Canio inspiring his players. This form continued against everton, perhaps the insprational effects of Di Canio improved his players approach motivation, and they were inspired TO DO, as theorised by the studies on inspiration. 

 However contrary to Leary Et Al.'s finding that the affective influences of inspiration have a long temporal precedence, that they can last even up to 3 months as shown in the third study of that paper, this doesn't seem to be the case of inspiration in the of Sunderland and Paolo Di Canio.  In a recent game, Sunderlands 'inspired' players lost 6-1 to aston villa, and put in what could be called a 'less than inspired' performance  Perhaps inspiration has a shorter effect than found by Leary et al? Perhaps it is only valid when the source of inspiration is novel? 

 This game, and a following game do again reinforce theory suggested by Leary et al. They suggested when inspiration is towards a goal or behaviour that is unattainable it might manifest in negative affect, or demoralisiation of the inspired party. This could be argued to be the case in this game, and the game against stoke, where Sunderland players have been sent off, possibly because of the negative affect/frustration caused by unattainable inspiration.

Fixing Fernando

According to the findings of the studies from this week, inspiration might well boost Fernando Torres' approach motivation, and confidence which may well help him play better.  As many media outlets have suggested Torres' struggling form is due to poor confidence, an increase in confidence via inspiration may well make him a better player. Given that Jose Mourinho, often cited to be the most inspirational manager is likely to return to Chelsea next season, perhaps he will have the perfect manager to inspire him.