Germany coach rely on the psychological element of his players in the World Championship
Katowice, Poland, September 8, 2014- Since 44 years, Germany didn't won a medal at the World Championship, it was in 1970 when they clinched the only medal under their name and it was gold in Bulgaria, but this time they came to Poland 2014 with another vision made by their coach Vital Heynen to return back to the podium after those long years.
Heynen who has the nationality of Belgium know much about the psychology of the players, so he brought up several sets of the three medals; Gold, Silver and Bronze and put them in front of the players everywhere they go.
"I know that players should see with their eyes the outcome of their efforts. I had previous experience with that since my first mission as a coach with Noliko Maaseik Club in Belgium," Heynen said after his team finalised the first part of the mission passing the first round in the World championship.
"I put a cup in front of them in the training hall and another one in the changing rooms, just to extract their power to win the cup. The trial succeeded as we won a lot of competition in Belgium and made a great era,"
"This time before the World championship, I did the same with Germany National team. I had copies of the top three medals; I put one set in the training hall.
Before each training session Heynen talk to the players and start theoretical part with the players' face looking to the medals.
Heynen followed: "After the end of the training, while they are sweating each player will find the medal in front of him in the changing room. When we go home to the Sports center, where the players live in the preparation time, they will find the medals on each room. They even look at them before going to sleep,"
Heynen's opinion is that players should believe they can do it and win a competition; "A lot of teams have the power and techniques to win, but they don't have the internal feeling they can do. I watched the match between Bulgaria and Egypt in this competition, the latter played a fantastic game and were able to win after a long tiebreaker, but they don't believe that they can win. A lot of teams come to the court only to play a good match, they want to do well and show that they are not a weak team, but not to the level of getting a victory.
"I wrote on the walls around the player one word "Kaizen", this means in Japanese that you have to get better every day, so the players are checking themselves if they had even a very small improvement from time to time,"
Germany passed the first round in Pool B at the second position after Brazil with a win- loss ratio of 4-1, to qualify for Pool F of the second round along with Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Russia, Canada, Finland and Cuba, where they will carry over 6 points from the first round, and will start in the third position after Brazil (9) and Russia (8).
"We are coming here for a medal, this the only thing you can return back home with, nothing else." he concluded