Kasper Høgh has been speaking about faith, anxiety and the things which help him deal with the pressures of being a professional footballer. But there was something else in Høgh’s words which caught my attention.
He sounds like a footballer who has spent time inside an environment where the psychological side of performance is taken seriously.
And, of course, he has.
Høgh came to Celtic from Bodø/Glimt, a club whose extraordinary rise has not simply been built on clever recruitment, tactical innovation and good coaching. Psychological development has been deliberately woven into what they do.
That is not speculation. Bodø/Glimt brought former fighter pilot Bjørn Mannsverk into their operation as a mental coach after relegation in 2016.
His work involved encouraging players to talk openly about their feelings, reducing stress, changing preparation routines and removing some of the stigma which surrounded mental training. Kjetil Knutsen subsequently embraced that work as part of the culture he built at the club.
Listen again to the way Høgh talks.
He talks about anxiety. He talks about leaving his comfort zone. He talks about personal development. He talks about having things in his life which give him stability and peace.
That does not mean Bodø/Glimt gave him his faith. Clearly it does not. Nor does it mean every sentence he speaks comes from a sports psychologist.
But the language is interesting because it sounds like the language of somebody who has been encouraged to think about himself as more than simply a footballer.
And that is exactly what people who have worked at Bodø/Glimt have described.
Former academy director Gregg Broughton spoke about helping young players understand that success is a journey rather than simply an outcome, and about allowing them to develop an identity which is not merely “the footballer” or “the Bodø/Glimt player”, but the person underneath it.
He described the ability to live in the present as one of the club’s major competitive advantages. That philosophy ought to sound very familiar after reading Høgh’s comments.
And it brings me back to something James wrote recently about Celtic and sports psychology.
We have recruited a footballer from a club which appears to understand this stuff at a very high level, brought him into Celtic, and placed him inside an environment where it is very difficult to identify anything comparable.
That should bother us.
Celtic spend millions on footballers. We spend millions on transfer fees, salaries, scouting and recruitment. We analyse fitness data, tactical systems and physical conditioning. But the human brain is still the thing operating the entire machine.
Confidence matters. Anxiety matters. Pressure matters. Concentration matters. Resilience matters. The ability to make the correct decision after conceding a goal matters. The ability to remain calm when 60,000 people are becoming nervous matters.
The ability to recover psychologically from a missed chance, a bad performance, a defeat or weeks of criticism matters.
Bodø/Glimt have treated these things as coachable.
Even Kjetil Knutsen has spoken openly about psychological momentum.
After a Champions League game against Tottenham, he identified his own side’s problems immediately after scoring as a mental issue.
UEFA’s subsequent analysis explicitly discussed performance psychology as something coaches can work on alongside tactical preparation.
That is a modern football club thinking about modern football problems. And look at what that club has achieved.
Bodø/Glimt have gone from a relatively small Norwegian club operating with limited resources to competing repeatedly against major European opposition. Knutsen has spoken about trusting the process, learning continuously and building a strong group culture as central ingredients in that rise.
Nobody is suggesting sports psychology explains all of that.
Their recruitment has been excellent. Their coaching has been excellent. Their tactical identity is extremely clear. Their player development has been outstanding.
But that is precisely the point.
They do not appear to treat mental preparation as some strange little addition sitting outside the football department.
It is part of the whole thing.
And then there is Celtic. How many times have we watched this team lose control of games after something goes wrong? How often have we watched confidence visibly drain from players? How often have we seen Celtic concede one goal in Europe and suddenly look vulnerable to another?
How many footballers have arrived looking confident, expressive and aggressive before eventually appearing inhibited and frightened of making mistakes?
Not every one of those problems is psychological. Of course it is not.
But neither should we keep pretending that psychology is some mystical unknowable force which cannot be coached, analysed and improved.
Høgh’s former club certainly does not appear to think that way.
And there is something almost symbolic about Celtic buying one of their players for around £11 million while apparently showing much less interest in importing some of the thinking which helped develop him.
We are willing to buy the finished product. Why are we so reluctant to study the factory? That is the question that we should all be asking, and the one that makes my Ginger Witch senses tingle. This stuff is not magical. But it can have magical effects.
Høgh is going through one of the most demanding periods of his career.
He has moved country again. He has joined an enormous football club. He carries a record transfer fee. He has played in a team which has suddenly started losing important matches. Every performance is examined, every missed chance is discussed and every goal drought becomes another debate.
His faith clearly gives him strength.
His family and those close to him give him strength too.
But Celtic also have a responsibility here. Not merely to coach his finishing or improve his movement. Not merely to make him fitter. Not merely to find the right formation.
They should be doing everything possible to create an environment where players are psychologically prepared for what representing Celtic actually means.
Because this club is intense. The pressure is relentless. And simply telling footballers to be mentally strong is not preparation. It is abdication.
Bodø/Glimt understood that years ago. Perhaps one of the most important things Kasper Høgh can bring to Celtic is not merely his goals. Perhaps somebody should be asking him what else they did differently.
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