Lately, the subpar performance of the 2024 Olympic Champions in VNL 2026—a team that won gold by decisively winning its matches—made me think about the performance of individual players and the team as a whole. I initially deduced that the difference came down to individual ambition to win. Personal motivation boosts individual performance like a turbo, but we need to look at this from a broader perspective.
The desire to succeed keeps a player locked into the game. It allows them to control their muscles more effectively and sharpens their reflexes. However, there is a limit to this. Some can maintain that motivation until the end, but others cannot. This brought me to the work done before the match even starts. A truly successful player is motivated from childhood until retirement. This continuous ambition helps the player strengthen their muscles, sharpen their reflexes, and master the control of their limbs. The result: high endurance during the match, agility, and precise execution.
A standard player mostly trains during official training sessions. For the best players, the team session is just the baseline. They keep training on their own until they perfect their body—they compete with themselves. Passion keeps them motivated to do this, meaning their drive starts long before game day. On the other hand, players born with superior natural talent sometimes lack this continuous drive, which leads to sharp ups and downs throughout their careers.
Self-motivation works differently in team sports compared to individual sports. Sustaining motivation in individual sports like tennis or snooker is far more difficult. I have observed that top players in these sports keep their motivation by treating every single game or frame as an isolated, standalone match. They focus entirely on winning the immediate point in front of them. This mental decoupling is how miracles happen—it is how the GOATs can face an opponent's match point, reset completely, and reverse the entire outcome.
In team sports, motivation relies on a different dynamic. A player is influenced by their teammates' energy, making it somewhat easier to sustain. The best teams achieve success largely because of this. When multiple players possess deep self-motivation before the match and continuously refine themselves, it creates a self-sustaining synergy. This is one of the main reasons the Dream Team succeeded—the individual players already possessed an insane ambition to win.
Conversely, we often see top teams lose to weaker opponents due to a drop in concentration. This comes down to the endurance level of each player's motivation. Team sports have a contagious vulnerability: if a few players lose concentration, it spreads to the rest of the team. The opposite, of course, is also true.
Furthermore, the GOAT players in team sports possess a macro-vision—they see the flow of the entire match. Coaches often give these exceptional players complete tactical freedom, allowing them to make real-time decisions without rigid system constraints. It reminds me of Toshiro Mifune’s performance in Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Kurosawa later stated that while he strictly controlled every move of the other actors, he let Mifune act freely. The ultimate player operates under that same trust.
Finally, we cannot forget that the ambition to win is rooted in success itself. If a team keeps losing because they lack quality, maintaining a winning mindset becomes much harder. It functions as a positive feedback loop: winning fuels ambition, while continuous losing erodes both confidence and execution.
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