Elements of a Champion

German Thomas Müller footballer helped his national team win the 2014 World Cup and was ranked that year as the fifth-best player in the world. Here he shares some of the elements which have been key to his success, many of which are equally relevant in sailing.

• Psychology – You have good moments and you have bad moments but through it you must remain focused and trust yourself and trust your teammates.

• Stamina – If you want to win in the big titles you need stamina because 90 plus minutes is long and you need the power and the stamina to defeat your opponent.

• Balance – It is important to feel comfortable in this business. On the pitch this means a good balance between offensive plays and good defense and you need both things to successfully win games.

• Precision – This is the ability to technically shoot goals and to lay great passes. You need precision to perform at your highest on the pitch.

• Focus – Just as in sports and other things, you need focus to have a good performance.

• Power – During a game there is some bad moments and you need to bring the power on the pitch to win the game. As a professional sportsman you need a lot of power to be successful.

• Support – This is very important for self-confidence. Also, we play our game for our supporters so without supporters there is no football and no great teams. So the supporters are very important.