R27 v Sydney | Sunday 26th April | 5:00pm

But we play better against attacking teams.

Not if two teams are the same in that attribute, sometimes you need an alpha tier to make the difference.

I reckon it's all about the "ebb and flow of psychic energy"

1000s of luminous spheres!

fify

It's Mabo. It's the vibe.

We need to find the witch doctor who's cursed our penalty takers.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/football/socceroos-owe-...

a) Yes, in exactly the same way you can lose physical fitness; by lack of exercise.

b) WSW 2 - 0 Nix. Tough fixture, that one.

Maybe a witchdoctor hexed us, like he hexed the Socceroos in Mozambique in 1974. Oops, ConanTroutman beat me to it.

Congratulations, this made me literally LOL. Big fan of Alyson Hannigan's work.

But to deal with your serious point: mental fortitude in the way I understand it expresses itself as consistency. Would our biggest spruiker say we´ve been consistent, rather than running hot and cold?

I've seen jugglers in circuses with technical ability but I bet they are not good footballers.

Classic Leggyism

I would suggest that with the exception of teams at the pointy ends of the competition ladder in most sports, that would be par for the course that teams have up and down games in the mental department. Those whom have less 'on' games, would probably tend towards the bottom of the table and the opposite for those that have more 'on' games. When you look were we finished - 4th and in the running for 2nd, mental toughness would not necessarily be an issue with this team however there are the odd example where they have proven and disproven it.

Double post

which would suggest it is mostly just a lazy cliche journalists can use in their articles after a game. 

I look at the Warriors this year and I think they lack.... I'm not going to say mental toughness but certainly mental application so if it was used in relation to the Warriors, I would be ok with that.

I think that word would be discipline in their case. 

Mental toughness = Mojo ?

Michael Burgess - Herald "The Phoenix have definitely lost their mojo over the past six weeks; there is no lack of spirit or endeavour but Ernie Merrick's team don't appear to have the same confidence on attack or poise on defence. That's hard to regain on the training field but could happen with a solid 90 minutes and a few goals against Melbourne City on Sunday."

However you define it, it is a mental thing. 

We have the players with the technical ability, they havent clicked in the last month, need to on Sunday

I read some god awful sharke on this site but at the end of the day I love the passion

Sunday 7:00 we will fudge City up good and proper.

Then there are teams which seem to just not manage to pull their shark together even when they should seem to - Man City this season for instance. But outside of those extremes, most teams seem to have their fair share of mental wins and losses.

I don't watch the Warriors enough these days to know if they fit at either extreme but I don't think that the current Phoenix do - we're an average side mentally: not particularly weak, not particularly strong. but this season pretty much all  A League sides have been similar to us in that regard

Ernie has spoken before about how he had to change the way players reacted under certain circumstances.

I would say he has worked on their mental toughness to achieve some of the results this year, especially after going behind early.

Yeah thats a good point. Belief to win in Melbourne, winning away and coming from behind. It helps to be very fit but those are good indicators.

Shame mental toughness doesn't include pens and corners though.

technical ability is about consistency also - being able to do great things is only part of it. The best teams do great things more often.

Talking about penalty kicks, this was a non forgettable day for Bayern. Lahm, Alonso and Neuer all missed their penalty's this morning in the DFB-Pokal semi against Dortmund.

Update: Goetze's one got saved by Langerak. 

Edit: As usual, many of us are arguing for the sake of argument, but I, personally, find the whole mental aspect of sport interesting. If there are any young hopefuls out there reading this forum and you haven't yet explored the mental side of serious sport - do it now - it will be of immense benefit.