The Economist recently published this article which considers how the weight of expectation placed on “golden generations” of football players can be so damaging.

I feel that a culmination of factors (our history, the pandemic premiership, strength of playing list) have created an oppressive weight of expectation which we’ve struggled to deal with.

While not alone in struggling with it, I’m curious to hear thoughts on how successful teams to thrive under the weight of expectation. What have you seen that works, if anything?

NB. The link will only work for the first five clicks… as I had to use a gifting feature to share.

Edited June 26, 2024Jun 26 by Jonathan Steffanoni
Typo and info on link.

There are many examples of teams/people succeeding and failing in both instances where they are expected to "win" and like wise "lose". I think our bias can have us reaching for some form of context to help bring some understanding to the current situation but in the end facts will be facts.

This team has under achieved with the playing list is had in previous seasons. 

To answer your question more clearly and what I believe; I think expectation no matter its strain if managed by the people in charge is mitigated or nurtured in a way that its reduced and or harnessed in a new and opportunistic way. Do we have the leadership for this.... Im not so sure.
The reality is the club has a fair bit of work to do between now and next season. The club will have already started making some calls on structure within the football department and i think we will see changes first off in that space.  

My major concern is development of youth at this point and do we have the best people around them. We have talent across the park and a lot feels miss used or under utilised. If we dont get this right we end up like a St Kilda, North Melbourne or the Dees in the tough days. 

Seems a natural progression from the old 'messiah complex' we had. Definitely something inflicted on our current Demon team. As well as shocking bad luck, of course.

Off the top of my head, there's also been Collingwood 2010 "Youngest premiers ever goign to rule the world", the Essendon 1999-2000 team, the Carlton 'Baby Blues', and the terrifying prospect of the Bulldogs 2016 kids continuing for a decade together.

Strange to think back on that Bulldog side and realise that more than half that side had their career-best season that year. Either it shows what an amazing job Beverige did mobilising a young and actually not outstanding team, or it suggests that he then squandered one of the great lists with an overbearing style that prevented players from growing further. Or both. The proverbial 'malady of victory'.

I think Richmond are an interesting counter case. While they had some genuine champions in crucial positions, overall the side was not stacked with any kind of super-elite 'generation' of talent. Perhaps consciousness of that helped them focus on the need to work at the team things?

2000s Geelong, on the other hand, was both a golden generation and got a rocket up them early on when they slumped after 2004-5, which set their minds to the task. Makes my hair stand on end when I think that the three premierships in five years was actually a pretty disappointing result for that team!