ABSTRACT
Although it’s difficult to accept defeat or failure in any aspect of life, it’s surprisingly easy to develop the habit of regarding such setbacks as someone else’s fault. This tendency to blame other people for our own misfortunes is widespread in sport. For example, in soccer, after England’s disappointing performance at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the players blamed their manager at the time, Fabio Capello. They claimed that he had picked the wrong team, played the wrong formation and had erred in his substitutions!1 Such a barrage of blame led Gareth Southgate (a former England international player) to observe that,
‘We are breeding players that look for excuses, that don’t want to take responsibility.’2
