Leif Smerud had already fallen in love with London when, on a post-season football tour to the city as a young player, he discovered a blues club on Kingly Street in Soho, Ain’t Nothin’ But …, where he likes to enjoy live music. He has adored coaching since first taking sessions at the Stavanger club Vidar, whose young team included the future Fulham defender Brede Hangeland. In the past two months, combining those passions, he has fallen for Crystal Palace because of their “underdog, competitive spirit”, since becoming their women’s team manager. Now, to try to save their top-flight status, he must call upon the skills he has honed in another of the loves of his professional life: psychology.
Smerud, having studied and taught sport psychology academically and worked as a clinical psychologist at a private practice, is as qualified as anybody to discuss the mental side of football. “I was very keen, when I was very young, to understand how some teams have great players but don’t perform,” he says, “while other teams have much lesser names but they perform.” How, then, can this expertise help Palace’s mentality as they enter their final three games knowing that they need to win all three to have any chance of avoiding relegation back to the Women’s Championship?
