In top football you will rarely find a locker room where no music is playedbefore the match. After all, music motivates; it makes you happy, it connects,it creates combativeness. At least we think. Because how big is the influenceof dressing room music on the field? Is it there at all? We dive into theempirical archive and may come up with useful advice for Louis van Gaal andhis associates.
By Tom Röfekamp
Our lives are laced with music. You hear music in the supermarket, in the puband in the telephone queue for the IKEA helpdesk. You listen to it on thebike, in the shower (yes, what you yourself whine you can also call music) andwhile driving. Even if you in the middle of nowhere and you think you havebanned any chance of outside stimuli from your environment, chances are a birdflying overhead will still chirp its happy melodies in your ear. Music iseverywhere.
Just imagine the 2010 World Cup without vuvuzelas.
So it should come as no surprise that sport is also imbued with it. Imagine aSaturday run without earphones. A bench press without headphones. Or,zooming out more, a packed football stadium, where all you hear is the buzz ofpeople chatting quietly in the stands, without chants, vuvuzelas or thump ofdrums brought along. It wouldn’t be the same.
We will stay in the stadium for a while. We go through the players tunnel,take one or two exits and then pass the door frame of the dressing room.There, one of the teams present – say Liverpool – is preparing for the gameof the year. Let’s say the Champions League final. The chosen team DJ (sayJordan Henderson) connects his phone to the included speaker system as usualand looks up ‘the’ number: All of the Lights by Kanye West. He presses’play’, and the music starts playing.
When it comes to music, Erik ten Hag ‘s policy during his time at BayernMunich left a lot to be desired…
Does music boost performance on the pitch? In 2013, researchers from the Leibniz University in Hanover took the test.They had two teams of five play three games and moved the variables perperformance. In the first game, neither team got to hear music beforehand. Inthe second, one crew heard fast, electronic compositions on wirelessheadphones, synchronized to the nearest thousandth of a second. The other teamgot after asynchronous numbers, varying in rhythm and tempo. During the lastgame, the roles were reversed: the ‘asynchronous’ team got the coordinatedmusic, and vice versa.
The results were evident: a team performed significantly better withsynchronous music than without or with asynchronous music. Researcher GerdSchmitz, who presented the findings to the German Football Association (DFB)after the experiment, described it as “a medium to large effect.” Whentrainers in Germany became aware of the results, they were immediatelyenthusiastic to test them in practice, the professor said afterwards.
Professor Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University in London picked up wherehis colleague across the Channel left off. In 2018, Karageorghis and hiscolleagues followed 34 youth players from a (as yet unknown) Premier Leagueclub over the course of a season, with the aim of charting their’psychological use of music’. It emerged from the questionnaires, reflectionsand interviews that the right sounds resulted in more self-confidence and abetter ability to suppress nerves. Music could also lead to betterperformances in training and competitions and give a sense of group cohesion.
In fact, players could even bad feel prepared if they were not told musicbefore a competition or training session. Erik ten Hag’s match policy duringhis time at Bayern Munich therefore left something to be desired.
Maybe the repertoire of hardcore DJ Angerfist isn ‘t quite the right choicefor a competition, but with Beethoven you might be cutting yourself evenmore.
pace! Whether you’re preparing for an important pot of the first movement ofBeethoven’s Moonlight Sonata setup or the repertoire of hardcore DJAngerfist makes quite a difference. Higher tempos provide motivation andimproved performance during short, intensive efforts; slower music isespecially helpful for endurance sports. Researchers at the University ofSouth Queensland discovered this in early 2020 in a large-scale literaturestudy. In the study – in which Karageorghis also co-wrote – it was discoveredthat a slower music tempo can help maintain a calmer heartbeat. Sports thatmainly revolve around endurance, such as running, would benefit from this.More explosive sports, for example CrossFit, thrive better with uptemponumbers. Although football falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, itcan most often be characterized as an endurance sport. Angerfist doesn’t seemso the way to go.
There’s a caveat, though: the Queensland findings involved music during theday sporting efforts. It can be said with certainty that the arbitral quartetwill come and get a story when Denzel Dumfries walks onto the field withBluetooth earphones in the upcoming World Cup. That is why Orange has to getthe most out of the music before the game. The ‘instant effect’ of slowersongs then falls into the water: it is better to choose at that moment to givethe heartbeat a boost.
This image will have been seen often enough in the dressing room, when ex-Crystal Palace teammates Damien Delaney and Wilfried Zaha clashed over theirdiffering musical tastes once again.
Who gets the auxiliary? As Karageorghis and colleagues concluded in their 2018 study, can music leadto a sense of group cohesion. Only we as humans differ fundamentally in ourlistening preferences. Just think of a nightclub you walk into and the musicisn’t your thing at all. Okay, the part of your group of friends that alsolikes to do ‘the butt shake’ in their spare time bass-heavy reggaeton beatsfrom the Latin American filing cabinet might persuade you to stay for onebeer, but after that you’ll want to leave with your tires screeching. Why elsewould it work in a dressing room?
It doesn’t, Karageorghis confirmed. A song or selection of songs where anentire group of players wants to scream their lungs out ensures mutual unity,the willingness to go through fire for each other. Music that doesn’t resonatewith everyone has the opposite effect. “The amount of crap I had to listento…” lamented former Crystal Palace defender and rock and roll enthusiastDamien Delaney in early 2021. The Athletic. “I think I officially gave upwhen someone told me there was a genre of music called ‘drill’.”
??>> — Adele (@Adele) January 10,> 2021
Partly for this reason, players are increasingly withdrawing into their ownlistening bubbles. The image of footballers preparing for a match with theirown chosen music on their earphones or headphones is becoming more and moreprevalent. “That does very little for team unity,” Karageorghis said. “If youask me as a psychologist whether individual preparation for a sport in whichyou are mutually dependent on each other is optimal, I would say ‘no’. Yes, dosome individual preparation. But you have to walk onto the field in a commonrhythm. In harmony. As a unit,” said the scientist.
Karageorghis believes there should always be one song that can bring the teamtogether. One of the best examples of this in recent football history isperhaps that of Chorley FC, which plays at the sixth tier of England. In the2020/21 season, Chorley surprised friend and foe by making it to the fourthround of the FA Cup and knocking Championship club Derby County out of thetournament 2-0. The victory song? A lament about the aftermath of a brokenrelationship – better known as Someone Like You from Adele. And don’t forgetthe Orange Lionesses, who seemed more united than ever at the 2017 World Cupceremony. You Can ‘t Get That Smile Off My Face by John de Bever blared fromthe speakers.
The Soundtrack of Champions Back to Liverpool. With the final notes of Rihanna’s rousing chorus stillringing in the players’ ears, they get ready to hit the Wanda Metropolitanofield. Tottenham Hotspur is the opponent tonight. Already in the secondminute, Mohamed Salah puts his team ahead by shooting a penalty decorated bySadio Mané impeccably. Tottenham then has possession of the ball, but hardlycreates any chances. Liverpool keeps things closed without any problems, ismore dangerous and closes the game just before time via Divock Origi. TheReds win their first Champions League in 14 years, and manager Jürgen Kloppcan hold up the big-eared cup for the first time.
Why this example? It’s true – including the song that buzzed the walls of theLiverpool dressing room beforehand. Although the qualities of the Liverpool of2019 should certainly not be misunderstood; music makes a difference. Scienceproves it. Adele may have been unable to get Chorley FC past Premier Leagueclub Wolverhampton Wanderers two seasons ago; it did provide that extra bit ofteam spirit, which allowed ‘David’ Chorley to triumph against ‘Goliath’ DerbyCounty. It could give just that little bit you need in a paper-matched battle.
Liverpool captain and team DJ Jordan Henderson holds up the Champions Leaguetrophy after a season in which Kanye West ‘s ‘All of the Lights’ was theanthem.
So what can the Orange learn from this for the coming World Cup? Which songshould the chosen team DJ permanently pin to the top of his Spotify library?
Well, that depends. André Hazes may be a Dutch icon, but if the majority ofthe selection prefers to turn their ears inside out when hearing Mokumtearjerkers, his music should be kept out of the dressing room. The trick isto find common ground, as Karageorghis said. One song that leaves everyone onthe same page. And preferably one that has a bit of pace. Angerfist, maybe.Maybe Henderson has some tips.
And if it all doesn’t help, there is always music to comfort them.