Kate Hays, the sports psychologist assisting the Lionesses in their Euros defence, offers an compelling blueprint for sustainable performance. Headlines regularly report the latest outburst on court, a striker’s unexplained goal drought or a coach’s touchline rant. We search to understand how the best teams make game-winning decisions, communicate almost telepathically, recover from failure and deliver breathtaking performances when it matters most. It’s a confusing world of belief systems and mindsets that can be hard to navigate and dominated by urban myths.
![[Cath Bishop]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/08/03/Cath_Bishop.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
To help answer these questions more systematically, Kate Hays, one of Britain’s most progressive sports psychologists, shares her insights and approach honed across Olympic sport, rugby and football in her new book How to Win. Hays, head of women’s performance psychology at the Football Association, takes us behind the scenes of some epic sporting achievements, from Tom Daley’s diving career to the Harlequins championship-winning team and Sarina Wiegman’s Euros-winning Lionesses.
![[By creating a purpose beyond diving, Tom Daley unlocked the freedom necessary to excel across five Olympics.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bf419579978e9d7e4b7281132b2a85cb1282930a/0_51_3074_1844/master/3074.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
A promising 800m runner growing up, Hays had twin fascinations with the worlds of sport and crime. She recalls loving the TV drama series Cracker, based on Robbie Coltrane’s colourful criminal psychologist, and was gripped by Paul Britton’s book The Jigsaw Man. Britton, a forensic psychologist, looks for the “mind trace” left by criminals rather than fingerprints or bloodstains, and asks himself four questions when faced with a crime scene: “What happened, who was the victim, how was it done and why?”.
![[England Women manager Sarina Wiegman (centre) prepares the Lionesses for their Euros title defence.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ef11fe0d493cfd108f83279c4b05045dd7f24fa1/0_121_3937_2363/master/3937.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
