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The Greatest

The Quest for Sporting Perfection

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The Greatest

By: Matthew Syed, Matthew Syed Consulting Ltd
Narrated by: Simon Slater
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About this listen

What can Roger Federer teach us about the secret of longevity?
What do the All Blacks have in common with improvised jazz musicians?
What can cognitive neuroscientists tell us about what happens to the brains of sportspeople when they perform?
And why did Johan Cruyff believe that beauty was more important than winning?

Matthew Syed, the 'Sports Journalist of the Year 2016', answers these questions and more in a fascinating, wide-ranging and provocative book about the mental game of sport.

How do we become the best that we can be, as individuals, teams and as organisations? Sport, with its innate sense of drama, its competitive edge, its psychological pressures, its sense of morality and its illusive quest for perfection, provides the answers.

(P)2017 John Murray Press©2017 Matthew Syed
Sports Psychology Sports
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Poor researched book, which reflects Syed’s left-leaning politics, by cherry-picking odd pieces of research to construct theories to support his personal philosophies. This is not sports psychology book, or psychology of any kind, it’s no more than his Times column. The section on Muhammad Ali is especially poor and glosses over Ali’s appalling treatment of Joe Frazier, ignoring the backstory to their complex relationship.

Journalist pretending to be a psychologist

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