NOS Football•today, 07:07
Tonight what has been written in the stars for a long time can finally happen: PSV can win the national title. If the Eindhoven team wins at SC Heerenveen and Feyenoord loses points at Go Ahead Eagles, Peter Bosz’s team will no longer be traceable.
For PSV it would mean the first national title since 2018. And that was partly made possible by a book that Bosz gave to the entire PSV selection prior to the season. “I thought: wow, if I were a football player, I would have wanted to read this book,” said the coach.
Ruthless
At PSV’s training camp in Spain in January, wing striker Johan Bakayoko already talked about the book he had received from Bosz: ‘Relentless’, by the American Tim Grover. He worked as an individual coach with basketball icons such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
Bosz gave the PSV selection a book: ‘Wanted to give the boys some inspiration’
“From good, to great, to unstoppable,” is the subtitle, which Bakayoko recites without any problem. He read the book and learned a lot from it. “I believe that the mental aspect is everything. Ninety percent of things in football can be improved. Football is a cognitive sport, I think.”
When asked, Bosz, at the same training camp, summarized the essence of the book. “It’s actually about: if you want to reach the absolute top, what does that look like and what does it take? An important part is about how you deal with setbacks, but also with success.”
Bakayoko received a book from trainer Bosz: ‘The mental aspect is everything’
Bosz’s assistants also read the work about the mental aspect behind top sport and were full of praise. “I thought it was a nice book that I would have liked to read as a player,” Bosz said. “So it was a simple decision to give the book as a gift to the PSV selection.”
Stayed at the top
Apparently the book has had an effect. PSV quickly took the lead in the Premier League and did not relinquish it all season. The first seventeen competition matches were all won, but it was only in matchday 27 that the first defeat was suffered. The Eindhoven team also reached and survived the group stage of the Champions League.
In short: PSV reached the top this season and stayed there. Bosz came back to this at the press conference prior to the potential championship match. “I wanted to give the boys some inspiration with it. The hope was that it could contribute to this season.”
Bosz does not dare to say whether everyone has finished the book like Bakayoko. “Every now and then an individual player has come back to it. But if you look at how the season has gone, you would say that everyone has read it,” he added with a wink.
Cleaner
An important concept in the book: being a ‘cleaner’. According to Bosz, that is an athlete who is ruthless for himself and the competition. Someone who does everything he can to get to the top and stay there.
Bosz has plenty of examples. In addition to Jordan, he also mentions the Dutch Max Verstappen and Mathieu van der Poel. And, remarkably, a player from his own selection.
“If you are successful, you will have one cleaner in your selection. And I think I have it,” he says cryptically. Who is that? “No, there’s no point in mentioning his name.”
Perhaps the PSV cleaner will stand up tonight in the championship match against Heerenveen, to give the Eindhoven team the 25th national title in club history. And Bosz even won his first national title ever.
