Peter Gerhardsson works a lot with strengthening the players' mental attitude through external texts and thoughts.
He is not the first. Many remember Tommy Svensson who during the men's football World Championship 1994 read out Karin Boye's poem "I rörelse" before the players went out against Saudi Arabia in the round of 16.
The national team captain goes further.
In connection with match reviews, I have taken quotes from Hartmut Rosa (German sociologist and author ed's note) and Jonna Bornemark (Swedish philosopher) to show that football is unpredictable. You do not know what will happen, which makes the sport so interesting. This unpredictability is also a strength for us, says Gerhardsson.
More advice
Jonna Bornemark becomes happy when she finds out that her thoughts contribute to lifting the Swedish football women. She takes the opportunity to come up with more philosophical advice to the players:
It is important that the players have the ability to handle the unique, special and unexpected that suddenly happens during a match. Here, the players must have it clear what is important for the whole situation. The players must be able to act and act despite not knowing the result of that action.
Sometimes Peter Gerhardsson spices his match reviews with music, which is important to him.
On Fridays, new music is released on Spotify. Sometimes I'm awake until after 12 o'clock on Thursday evening to quickly see everything new that has come. Music is my great relaxation. I am also interested in the lyrics.
"Looked at me"
It is precisely the lyrics that are important when he plays music at match reviews. Peter Gerhardsson remembers an occasion during the European Championship in England 2022.
At a match review, he played the song "Initiative" with the group Shopping.
I dressed the song with words like taking initiative in the match. I remember that the girls looked at me and wondered what this is. Afterwards, it was probably talked more about me than with me about this, Gerhardsson remembers and laughs.
