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The Golden Ball

The Golden Ball

De : Jung Platform
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How depth psychology can help you play the game of life in a more fulfilling way.


Three depth psychologists, one of them a former World Cup soccer player, explore soccer as a metaphor for life.

© 2026 The Golden Ball & Jung Platform Développement personnel Football Philosophie Réussite personnelle Sciences sociales
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  • After the final match

    After the final match
    Jul 23 2026
    The World Cup is over. The golden ball has been lifted. And now comes the question: What do you do when the thing you loved so much simply ends?In this episodeThe final match has been played. Spain won. Beauty won. And three depth psychologists sit together one last time to process something that every soccer fan, every creative person, and every human being who has ever given themselves fully to something knows.The morning after.Not the loss. The ending. The particular emptiness that arrives when something wonderful is over and the spirit that animated it has moved on to find a new home.What you will hear:The after-flow and the depression that follows. Machiel opens with something that surprised even the others. After a creative endeavor ends (a World Cup, a book, a project, even the birth of a project), the spirit that visited finds its form and moves on. And the human host is left behind. What follows is often a mild depression. Not pathological. Natural. The price of having been truly inspired.Beauty winning. All three psychologists were rooting for Spain as a style. A way of playing. They wanted beauty to win. And it did. That feeling of something larger than a result being at stake, that is the World Cup at its most mythological.Soccer as art. The conversation returns to a theme that has run through the whole series. Soccer is like art. You can prefer Van Gogh or Rembrandt. You can prefer Spain or Argentina. And in those preferences something true about you is revealed.The post-World Cup rituals. John describes the World Cup poster on his son's wall. The moment of slowly taking it down. Folding it. Maybe leaving it on the table for a week before it goes in the trash. That small act becomes a ritual of honoring what has passed. Of not moving on too quickly. Of letting the transition be real.The pre-creative depression. Akke-Jeanne introduces a concept that reframes the emptiness after something ends. Before creativity flourishes again there is always a period of dullness, emptiness, and boredom. A winter. The temptation is to fill it up. The practice is to trust it. Something new is already forming beneath the surface.The in-between space has its own value. In a culture obsessed with performance and achievement, the non-performance state is treated as a problem to be solved. This conversation says otherwise. The in-between is not a gap between what mattered. It is part of what matters.The gift of more time. With the World Cup over, there is an afternoon to fill with something different. That can feel like loss. But it can also feel like a quiet relief. A freeing up. A small return to a life that had been temporarily organized around something external.What the series taught all three of them. A warm and genuine closing conversation between three people who have spent eight weeks thinking together, disagreeing, discovering, and playing. Not just about soccer. About life.Practical takeaways:Do not rush through the ending. Whether it is the World Cup, a project, a relationship, or a season of life, the transition deserves to be honored. A small ritual helps. Taking down the poster slowly. Writing something. Going for a longer walk.Trust the winter. The emptiness after something meaningful ends is not a problem. It is a pre-creative depression. Something new is already forming. Give it time to arrive.Notice what the tournament revealed about you. What did you root for and why? What moments moved you and what did that tell you about your own values, your own gold?Let the in-between be. Not everything needs to be filled. The non-performance state has its own quality and its own value.The question we leave you with:Think of something that ended — a project, a season, a chapter of your life. What did you do with the space it left behind, and what would it mean to honor that ending rather than rush past it?Share your answer with us at hello@thegoldenball.fm. We read every one.A note from the hostsThis is the final episode of The Golden Ball FM World Cup 2026 series. Thank you for listening, for sharing your answers, and for playing with us.For the love of the game.About the hostsMachiel Klerk is a psychotherapist in New York City, founder of Jung Platform, and lifelong lover of the game. machielklerk.comAkke-Jeanne Klerk is a personal development coach, depth psychology teacher, and co-founder of Jung Platform. akkejeanneklerk.comJohn O'Brien is a former World Cup soccer player and sports psychologist who combines performance tools with sand, symbols, and imagination to help athletes and others perform and understand themselves more deeply. johnobriensportpsych.comThe Golden Ball, where depth psychology and the beautiful game help us play life better.
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    41 min
  • When Winning Matters

    When Winning Matters
    Jul 16 2026

    When Winning Matters: Playing to Win vs Playing Not to Lose

    There are moments in life when everything is on the line. What happens in your body, your mind, and your soul in that moment? And how do you find lightness when the weight of it all presses down?

    In this episode

    The World Cup has reached its final stages. Semi-finals. Finals. Moments that will be written into history books. Moments that will define careers, countries, and dreams.

    And yet the players who perform best in these moments are often the ones who find a way to make it feel like just another game.

    Three depth psychologists explore what it really means to show up when winning matters. Not just as a performance challenge, but as a psychological and even spiritual one.

    What you will hear:

    The language of matter, density, and pressure. John opens with a linguistic observation that anchors the whole conversation. When winning matters, matter accumulates. The body gets heavy. The legs slow down. The mind closes in on simple solutions. Creativity disappears. And the path back to lightness is both physical and psychological.

    Mbappé before the penalty. Akke-Jeanne describes watching his body get tighter and tighter as the referee delayed the moment. The relationship between relaxation and success is not just psychological. It is visible in real time if you know what to look for.

    What you can see in the body before a penalty is taken. Shoulders dropping. A surrender to the moment. The difference between someone talking themselves into something and someone who has simply arrived. One scores more often than the other.

    Play to win versus play not to lose. Machiel brings one of the most important distinctions in the episode. Playing not to lose creates rigidity. It puts a knife to the throat of performance. Playing to win requires accepting the possibility of losing. That paradox is at the heart of peak performance.

    The threshold moment. These are not just pressure moments. They are initiation moments. Whatever team wins the World Cup final will carry that moment into history. Whatever person walks into a job interview and performs at their best will cross a threshold into a new version of themselves. The stakes are real. And that reality is part of what makes them so difficult.

    The monsters on the path. Machiel introduces one of the most evocative images of the series. When winning matters, monsters show up. Fears. Inner voices. The weight of expectation. The narrative of what this result will mean for your career, your identity, your future. The technique is not to fight the monsters. It is to keep walking toward the temple.

    The role of joy. Ronaldinho versus Messi. Maradona versus the more serious expressions of greatness. Does joy make you perform better? And what does it mean that some of the greatest players of all time seem to carry the game as a burden rather than a gift?

    The open heart as medicine. Machiel's phrase that closes the episode beautifully. When matter accumulates and the monsters crowd in, the antidote is not willpower or technique alone. It is an open heart. The capacity to remain connected to why this matters in the first place.

    Practical takeaways:

    • Develop a pre-performance routine in low pressure moments so it is available in high pressure ones. The body needs to have practiced relaxation before it can find it when everything is at stake.
    • Notice the difference between talking yourself into something and arriving. One is effortful. The other is a release. The second one scores more often.
    • Include the possibility of losing. Paradoxically, accepting that you might lose is often what makes it possible to play freely enough to win.
    • When the monsters show up, keep walking. Do not engage. Do not argue. Do not try to prove the inner critic wrong. Just stay on the path toward the temple.
    • Ask yourself as you watch the remaining games: is this player playing to win or playing not to lose? You will see it in their body before you see it in the result.

    About the hosts

    John O'Brien is a former World Cup soccer player and sports psychologist who combines performance tools with sand, symbols, and imagination to help athletes and others perform and understand themselves more deeply. johnobriensportpsych.com

    Machiel Klerk is a psychotherapist, founder of Jung Platform, and lifelong lover of the game. machielklerk.com

    Akke-Jeanne Klerk is a personal development coach, Jungian psychology teacher, and co-founder of Jung Platform. akkejeanneklerk.com

    The Golden Ball, where depth psychology and the beautiful game help us play life better.
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    40 min
  • When the Dream Ends

    When the Dream Ends
    Jul 9 2026
    When the dream endsThe World Cup is in the knockout phase. Some dreams have ended. Some players have gone home. And somewhere in a hotel room, someone is replaying the moment over and over, trying to change an outcome that cannot be changed.This episode is about what happens after the loss. Not the analysis. Not the blame. The inner journey that begins when something you cared about deeply does not go the way you needed it to.What you will hear:The difference between small losses and big losses. Guardiola's five second rule works perfectly for a misplaced pass. It does not work for a broken dream. Bigger losses require a different kind of tending entirely.The underworld journey. In Greek mythology, Hades is not punishment. It is a necessary passage. When something significant is lost, we find ourselves there whether we want to or not. The question is not how to avoid it. It is how to navigate it.Why moving on too quickly is counterproductive. The instinct to think your way out of grief, to will yourself through it, to stay strong, is a survival mechanism. Not a healing one. What gets bypassed in that strategy eventually surfaces in other ways, including in performance.Dissociation and the cost of not feeling. When emotions are not processed, they do not disappear. They begin operating beneath the surface as defense mechanisms. The player who has not genuinely grieved a loss may find themselves unable to fully commit the next time something is at stake.Blaming as a survival strategy. Pointing the finger gives a temporary sense of control when we are actually powerless. It is understandable. But it leaves part of us still in the underworld while the rest pretends to have moved on.The role of witnesses. When someone simply acknowledges what happened, when they say I see you and I know that was hard, something shifts. Grief is not meant to be carried alone. In one African tribe, when someone suffers a great loss, the community stops its work and sits in a circle around the grieving person. No advice. No analysis. Just presence.The tension between depth psychology and sports psychology. Sports psychology is built for speed and performance. Depth psychology moves slower and goes deeper. Both are necessary. They are not mutually exclusive. They must walk hand in hand for genuine flourishing.Johan Cruyff's insight: every disadvantage has an advantage. Not as a way of bypassing pain, but as a perspective that becomes available once the feelings have been genuinely honored.The gold on the other side. People who have navigated loss well carry something that cannot be taught any other way. A depth of empathy. A quality of presence. A capacity to sit with others in their own darkness without needing to fix it.Pocket time. You do not need to live in the underworld for weeks. Five minutes at a time, with genuine presence, is medicinal. Set a timer. Be there. Then return to the day.One thought that stays:You are no longer a person who plays at the World Cup. You are a person sitting on the couch watching the World Cup.That sentence from the opening of this episode captures something essential. Big losses do not just hurt. They change who we are. And navigating that change, rather than pretending it did not happen, is where psychological work begins.Practical takeaways:Distinguish between the loss and what to do with it. Feeling comes first. Reflection comes second. Trying to learn from a loss before you have genuinely felt it skips the most important step.Give yourself pocket time. Set a timer for five minutes. Be present to the grief without trying to fix it or understand it. Then return to the day. Small and real is more powerful than large and avoided.Notice the impulse to blame. It is a signal that you are in the underworld and looking for a way out. That is human. But if you follow the blame too far, part of you stays behind.Pay attention to your dreams and your body. The psyche has its own suggestions for the journey. They are often quieter and wiser than the mind's first instinct.Ask the Jungian question when the time feels right: what am I being invited to become through this experience?About the hostsJohn O'Brien is a former World Cup soccer player and sports psychologist who combines performance tools with sand, symbols, and imagination to help athletes and others perform and understand themselves more deeply. johnobriensportpsych.comMachiel Klerk is a psychotherapist, founder of Jung Platform, and lifelong lover of the game. machielklerk.comAkke-Jeanne Klerk is a Jungian coach, teacher, and co-founder of Jung Platform. Her book on heartbreak, De Psychologie van een Gebroken Hart, is available in Dutch. akkejeanneklerk.comThe Golden Ball - where depth psychology and the beautiful game help us play life better.
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    43 min
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