Overcoming the Fear of Mistakes: Playing (and Living) with a Free Soul

Soccer — world football, fútbol, futebol, calcio — is fundamentally a game of mistakes. No one in history has played perfectly. Messi. Ronaldo. Pelé. Zidane. Mbappé. Lamine Yamal.
All brilliant. All flawed. All human.

What separates these players from the rest isn’t that they avoid mistakes — it’s how quickly they forget them.

On the pitch, every split second matters. A half-second of frustration, self-critique, or fear is enough to be punished. In younger players especially, this delay is easy to see. A mistake happens. The head drops. The body tenses. Confidence evaporates. Instead of fixing the problem immediately, the hesitation magnifies it.

So if the best players in the world make mistakes, why are younger players so hard on themselves?

Somewhere along the way, many players internalize the belief that their worth is tied to perfection. If I don’t make mistakes, I won’t get yelled at. If I don’t make mistakes, I’m a good player.
This mentality slowly kills joy, expression, and creativity — the very things that make football beautiful.

As a player, nothing was more frustrating than a coach who limited freedom. Principles and structure absolutely matter, but some coaches take control too far. They coach as if holding a remote, chastising any decision they personally wouldn’t have made. But players need space to solve problems. No two players think the same way — unpredictability isn’t a flaw, it’s an advantage.

To play with a free soul, you have to reconnect with how the game felt as a child. Treat matches with the same emotional weight as a pickup game. Whether I was playing in front of thousands or training alone, I repeated the same reminders to myself:

Relax.
Stay loose.
Have fun.
Clear mind.

Quieting the internal critic takes work. That automatic voice — the one that creates hesitation — doesn’t disappear overnight. The first step is realizing your worth extends beyond the field. It’s reflected in how you treat people, how you respond to adversity, the effort you give, and how consistently you pursue your goals.

When mistakes stop defining you, freedom returns.
And when freedom returns, the game flows the way it’s meant to.