The first episode of 2026 is a compelling sneak peak behind the curtain of elite European professional football, with the fantastic Dr Peter Schneider.

Peter is a mental performance coach with a PhD in Sport Psychology and dual master’s degrees in Sport & Exercise Psychology and Diagnostics & Intervention, trained at the University of Leipzig and the University of Jyväskylä. Across 4 seasons leading mental performance at RB Leipzig, he helped build high‑performance habits that translated into two DFB‑Cup titles and a Supercup victory.

And in this episode we get to hear some fascinating stories and anecdotes from this world, punctuated by some pearls of wisdom on elite performance, and the lives of elite performers.

You can follow Peter here:

Website:

https://www.peterschneider-mpr.com/

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterschneider85/

This week’s episode is an AASP Special.

Dr. Mustafa Sarkar is Associate Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology at Nottingham Trent University as well as a consultant specialising in individual, team, and organisational resilience across many high performance domains. He’s also keen footballer and Liverpool fan – but he tells me he’s from the Roy Evans and Gerard Houlier era, not a modern day glory hunter, so we’ll let him off.

The Association for Applied Sport Psychology (or AASP)’s annual conference is coming up this week from the 15th – 18th October in Montreal, where there will be a host of great speakers and content.

Mustafa delivered the opening keynote to last year’s 2024 AASP conference in Las Vegas – titled “Bridging the Research to Practice Gap in Sport and Performance Psychology”. In this episode Mustafar unpacks some of the context behind this keynote, as well as six suggested starting points for how we can bridge this gap as a profession, as an industry and as individuals.

At this week’s AASP conference, we’ll get a complimentary roundtable entitled the “Practice to Research Gap’, chaired by Philadelphia Phillies’ Mental Performance Coordinator Traci Statler - what better time to reflect on Mustafa’s insights, experiences and provocations from 2024.

You can follow Mustafa here:

Social networks:

- LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mustafa-sarkar-b6370256

NYU Website:

- https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/science-technology/mustafa-sarkar

Our previous podcast episode covering ‘Resilience’..

- https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/1-resilience-in-people-and-organisations-dr-mustafa-sarkar/id1506560750?i=1000470629088

Research:

- Mustafa’s Research Gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mustafa-Sarkar-2?ev=hdr_xprf

- Ben Ashdown’s research on resilience behaviours in academy football: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10413200.2024.2361701

- Richard Keegan’s paper in 2017 on bridging the research-practice gap: https://archives.rpd-online.com/article/view/v26-n6-keegan-cotteril-woolway-etal.html

- Dr Marie Winter’s work on evidence-informed decision making (paper 1): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10413200.2023.2286950

- Dr Marie Winter’s work on evidence-informed decision making (paper 2): https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/39/3/article-p200.xml

- Myths of Sport Coaching by Dr Amy Whitehead and Jenny Coe: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/whiteheadcoe/

- Myths of Sport Performance by Dr Amy Whitehead and Jenny Coe: https://www.sequoia-books.com/catalog/sport/

Videos:

- Richard Keegan: closing the research to practi

In this second episode of 2025 we have the pleasure of getting to speak to Dr. Martin Turner again - exploring different nuances and themes within REBT, and its growing applicability to systemic and environment challenges.

On the applied side Martin has worked across football, cricket, rugby, cycling, archery, shooting, and equestrian. He also provides performance psychology to business professionals. He’s the Lead Sport Psychologist for England Futsal and his work with athletes has included seasons at Nottingham Forest FC Academy, Nottingham County Cricket Club Academy, Staffordshire County Cricket Club Academy, and Stoke City Football Academy.

You can find out more about Martin, his books and latest papers below:

Social networks:
https://twitter.com/DrMJTurner
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-martin-turner-828b766b/

The Books:
1) The Rational Practitioner (the one with the Dragon) https://www.routledge.com/The-Rational-Practitioner-The-Sport-and-Performance-Psychologists-Guide-To-Practicing-Rational-Emotive-Behaviour-Therapy/Turner/p/book/9781032060408

2) REBT in Sport & Exercise (2020) https://www.waterstones.com/book/rational-emotive-behavior-therapy-in-sport-and-exercise/martin-turner/richard-bennett/9780367407803

The REBT & Hero’s Journey Paper:Tales of rationality: the rational emotive behavioral monomyth as a metaphorical alignment of rational emotive behavior therapy and the Hero’s Journey narrative structure - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1572636/full

Recommended book: "Down and Out in London and Paris" (George Orwell): https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/364887/down-and-out-in-paris-and-london-by-orwell-george/9781784878993