The Psychology Behind England’s Women’s Soccer Team Victory

England’s women’s soccer team, known as The Lionesses, has cemented its place in sporting history by winning the European Championships back-to-back.

A comparison with the relatively dismal performance of the nation’s men’s soccer team (The Lions) is inevitable, and not flattering for the male ego. The male England team hasn’t won anything since 1966.

An inevitable question is prompted: Is there some aspect of female psychology that could explain why the same nation can produce two national teams with such dramatically different performance records in international competitions?

The issue of gender differences remains controversial in biology, psychology, and politics.

Yet an analysis of psychological gender differences may still be required, as when it comes to physical differences between male and female elite soccer players, the comparisons tend to almost universally favor the men.

For example, female soccer players have a two to three times higher ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury risk compared to their male counterparts. This is accounted for by anatomical differences between the shape and structure of the knees and thighs between men and women.

But could a superior team spirit among female soccer players compensate for these physical disadvantages when comparisons with male players are made?

After all, Lucy Bronze, England’s most decorated footballer, has now been revealed to have played with a fractured tibia throughout the tournament.

Another physical difference that favors men is that high-intensity running in elite female soccer matches is 30 percent lower than that of their male counterparts of a similar competitive standard.

One study examined gender differences in match performance characteristics of elite soccer players during UEFA Champions League matches using a multi-camera system.

Male players covered more distance than female players and at a higher speed. Female players lost the ball more often and displayed lower pass completion rates than male players. The study contended that it is mainly the high-intensity exercise periods that are important, with the amount of high-speed running having been shown to be a distinguishing factor between top-class players and those at a lower level.

Another study related to the soccer World Cup 2018, describing 101,759 events from 64 matches, 32 national teams, 736 players, and the women’s soccer World Cup 2019, with 71,636 events, 44 matches, 24 national teams, and 546 players.

Women’s matches have, on average, more free kicks, duels, accelerations, clearances, and ball touches and passes but fewer fouls than men’s matches. Men’s passes are also more accurate than women’s, but the number of fouls is lower in matches between women compared to men.

So this begs the question of whether women working as a team do a better job in winning at soccer than the more competitive male ego may allow for men’s teams.

In a collective sport such as soccer, a personal error can be corrected by a partner, with the team company being a key support at times of stress and self-doubt.

Another theory for greater emotional resilience among elite female soccer players is that their development history in scaling the higher reaches of the sport may be very different from that of men, and therefore more stressful, producing a mentally tougher final athlete.

Young women taking up sport may perceive that their bodies are looked at, commented on, and evaluated by others due to the physical changes of puberty in a way that means younger female athletes have more to overcome when it comes to negative judgment from others in the early stages of their career.

Maybe that superior mental resilience explains the relentless fighting spirit that accounts for The Lionesses’ unerring ability in this tournament to keep coming from behind.

They were actually defeated by France in the opening game, but England bounced back, beating the next two teams they faced to reach the knockout stages. Then they were 2-0 down to Sweden in the quarterfinals but still came back, eventually winning on penalties, a notorious Achilles’ heel of the men’s team.

Then they were 1-0 down again to Italy in the semifinals before teenager Michelle Agyemang scored a 96th-minute equalizer and Kelly netted the extra-time winner in the 119th minute.

One possible explanation proffered by some sports psychologists is that women soccer players may score higher on team cohesion compared to men. It could be more part of female psychology to be a better and more supportive team player.

The togetherness of the squad was apparent, argues the BBC sport website, drawing attention to Lucy Bronze’s willingness to play through pain, the players’ solidarity reaction to teammate Jess Carter’s experience of racial abuse, while Agyemang was pushed by teammates towards fans to receive adulation.

Also, a number of studies have argued, controversially, that women may be able to outperform men in particularly long (endurance) events such as ultra-marathons, suggesting that there is something about focus and mental exhaustion where female athletes could have an edge over males.

Maybe women are less “ego-involved” than men and turn up even at the office more interested in accomplishing the task they have been assigned, while men appear keener to show off in meetings and appear to be elite performers, in order to better secure promotion, compared to actually fighting in the trenches.

In the final penalty shoot-out, England couldn’t have had a more disastrous start, with the first shot having to be re-taken, and then that was saved. This became a true test of character, which is to keep fighting even though it looked, at that stage, like there was an impossible hill to climb.

Some sports psychologists refer to this as the “champion mindset,” which focuses on the fine balance between supreme self-belief yet not tipping over into arrogance, narcissism, and then being haunted by shame over public humiliation. Fear of failure means players tighten up and don’t play freely.

Obviously, there is no psychological “magic bullet” that can replace hours of training and physical and technical superiority on the field of play, but that nerve-shredding final suggests there is something at the very top of elite sports about the mental aspects that defines the difference between a champion and a runner-up.

Exactly what that is remains mysterious, but maybe for elite soccer in England, the men have something to learn from the women when it comes to mental strength, focus, psychological stamina, and team spirit.

Maybe with so much more money, glamour, press and fan attention in the men’s game, elite male soccer athletes are just now simply playing for the wrong reason, while the women, given the relative absence of all of the above, must be playing more for the sheer joy and ambition, to master the skill, nothing more, nothing less.

Sometimes success can breed failure.