Joe Root Quotes

It could be very costly if you don't have a clear mind during a tournament.

The last thing, and the only one that you cannot physically train for, is the psychological preparation.

Ninety percent of my game is mental. It's my concentration that has gotten me this far.

It's a very big mental game, all day leading up to warm-ups. You're not sure if your curveball will break, or will you be able to throw it over the plate? It's all negative thoughts going into the game.

During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.

I think if you think so much, you simply cannot bat.

I find it hard to watch a lot of the kind of things I'm doing before doing it. I don't think it's helpful for me. It makes me too aware.

Sometimes you have a good game and mentally you are very tired.

Just because I have to deal with the stress and pressure and nerves of elite sport every day, it doesn't mean it all comes easily. I have worked hard at the mental side of my game.

I definitely have been working a lot on the mental side of my game.

You go through mental preparation the night before the game and prepare for moments of trauma in a game when it happens.

Wrestling is one of the hardest things, and it has nothing to do with the extremely hard physical part of it. It has to do with the psychological part of it.

A really important technique for me is visualisation. Before a match I will sit down and think about all the different situations which might happen on the field - if the openers start well, if you end up going out earlier than expected, what the conditions might be like.

The more cricket you play in your head, the less you perform on the field. So let cricket, the sport, be on the field.

The mental part of the game, being able to free up on the tennis court, is much easier said than done.

But baseball was different... You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you f****d up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error, but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see? ... You could only try so hard not to try too hard before you were right back around to trying too hard. And trying hard, as everyone told him, was wrong, all wrong.

I don't think too much about mechanics. I just like to go up there and swing. It's more than my swing, though. It's my mindset. I always go to home plate with a plan.

When I stepped up a division I can remember suffering the worst fatigue I had ever felt. I noticed it massively.

You use up a lot of mental energy in the Champions League.

Any match you face, you know, you can be nervous.

There's always a little bit of anticipation - some people call it nerves - the night before, and although I always slept pretty well before big matches, you want to be on edge a little bit to get the best out of yourself.

Mentally, starting the game versus coming off the bench, there are different vibes.

The most important part for me is mentally. Physically, I know I'm going to put the work in. That's not even a question. But mentally you may have some days where it's tougher.

I think in football, most of it is just mental.

I don't really believe in bogey teams. The results might just be a coincidence, but we need to make sure the same thing doesn't happen at Wembley.