Nine months ago, Oskars Vientiess said two things were holding him back:

No processes and no acceptance.

He wanted to become “Oskars 2.0”, a player who was courageous, trusted his instincts and stopped hiding when things went wrong.

Since then, he has moved abroad, stepped up from the Czech second tier to the top flight and made his senior debut for Latvia.

Three international appearances in eleven days.

And his strongest match scores came while representing his country.

Comparing the score Oskars gave his starting point with his latest self-assessment, his Inner Game Index moved from 54% to 75%.

That is an increase of 21 percentage points and an overall improvement of 39%.

Some of his biggest changes were:

• Dealing with judgement: 29% → 82% (+53 points)
• Reset speed after mistakes: 38% → 86% (+48 points)
• Trusting his instincts: 35% → 76% (+41 points)
• Handling stress: 44% → 83% (+39 points)
• Enjoyment: 54% → 89% (+35 points)

His three international match reviews averaged 84%, compared with 78% across his previous three club matches.

But the real change cannot be explained by a score.

Previously, one mistake could make Oskars hide for the rest of a game and affect him the following day.

Against Slavia Prague, he scored an own goal in front of 13,000 people.

Five seconds later, he was back on his feet, demanding the ball and refusing to hide.

That is the work of showing up when it matters.

In this conversation, Oskars explains:

• Why he decided to start training his mentality
• How he stopped fearing other people’s judgement
• The processes he now uses before every match
• Why accepting mistakes helped him play with greater freedom
• How he responds immediately when something goes wrong
• What it felt like to make his senior international debut
• Why working alongside other professional players has helped him
• What he is working on as he moves from “Oskars 2.0” to “Oskars 3.0”

Most players have coaches for their technical, tactical and physical performance.

Very few have anybody helping them with the part that affects all three.

Their mentality.

If you are a professional footballer and know your mind is stopping you from showing your best game consistently, apply to work with Rob, Luke and the team inside Elite XI:

https://www.elitexiapply.com

Subscribe for more honest conversations about the inner game of professional football.

One player was drinking every night.

But every morning, he walked into training with a smile on his face, and nobody had a clue that he was struggling.

That is football.

Players learn very quickly how to put on a mask. They tell everyone they’re fine, hide what they’re really feeling and carry on because they’re terrified that admitting they’re struggling will make them look weak.

In this episode, Luke O’Nien speaks honestly about the masks he wore throughout his career, losing his identity and reaching a point where he didn’t know who he was anymore.

We talk about:

• Why football becomes a player’s entire identity
• Why asking for help can feel like weakness
• The pressure to fit into a new dressing room
• Reading criticism and opinions on social media
• What happens when emotions are continually pushed down
• How Luke now uses emotions as information
• Why journaling changed his life
• The support network every professional player needs

After analysing 107 conversations with professional footballers, we found that 106 of them had suffered in silence or hidden what they were genuinely experiencing.

That should tell you everything.

Struggling doesn’t make you weak. Pretending you’re fine doesn’t make the struggle disappear.

The lone wolf starves. You are stronger in a pack.

If you’re a professional footballer and want support from people who understand what the game is really like, apply to join Elite XI:

https://www.elitexiapply.com

One mistake shouldn't cost you the whole game. For most footballers, it does.

In this episode, Elite XI's Rob Blackburne and Sunderland captain Luke O'Nien break down "mistake looping": the mental spiral where one error glazes your eyes over, drags you out of the present, and quietly pulls you into a second mistake and a third.

Luke is brutally honest about the years he spent trapped in it. Hearing 35,000 people groan. Replaying the mistake on a loop while the game carried on without him. Hiding it by playing safe and passing the buck.

Then he breaks down exactly how he got out.

We get into:

▸ What mistake looping actually is, and why it leads to more mistakes
▸ Why it's never the mistake, it's what the mistake means about you
▸ How overthinking before a game makes the mistake come true
▸ The reframe elite players use: if you're not making mistakes, you're not making things happen
▸ Why telling yourself "don't make a mistake" guarantees more of them
▸ Finding your baseline, and the Three A's framework: awareness, acceptance, action
▸ Turning judgment into feedback, with a boxing analogy that makes it click
▸ Why 107 out of 107 players we analysed struggled with the same thing

If mistakes wreck your head and your game, this is the one to watch.

🏆 APPLY TO WORK WITH ROB & LUKE

Elite XI is our inner-game programme for footballers serious about the mental side. If you want help dealing with mistakes,

Apply here 👉 https://elitexiapply.com

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes on the psychology of elite football. Next up: why so many players suffer in silence.