Gerardo Martino Quotes

There is a hangover from a defeat like Denmark - ask any player about when they've had a bad game, it's still in there somewhere in the back of your mind.

In 1987 I got dartitis, a psychological condition which means you can't let your darts go properly. For a time, I wondered what the hell I was going to do if I didn't recover. But I remained positive and, thankfully, got over it. It occurred during the Swedish Open when I found I couldn't let the darts go.

It's hard when you get down. You start pressing a little bit trying to get back in the game.

Self-belief is certainly an issue you need to make sure you look after when you've lost heavily in two games.

Sometimes it's been difficult to stay positive, especially after the injuries that I've had, which have been frustrating.

The punches that don't knock you out are the ones you feel the most.

I get quite stroppy if I lose - but I've developed skills with a mind coach to help deal with the highs and lows of tennis at this level.

You get into a tough spot where you're not feeling good and you can't do what you're typically accustomed to doing, you just keep grinding.

I have been in slumps before where I've never lost confidence in myself.

The worst thing I've done while sad is sit in defeat. That's very unhealthy. The best thing to do is dust yourself off and try again.

Some things you can shake off, some things dig deeper than soccer.

I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it. I had to force myself back out into life, back out into experiencing things.

No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn't.

After I lost the first set, I was like, 'OK, I need to get help because I can't play this way.'

When you lose, there is a whole bunch of room for negativity and I don't feed into this stuff and I do not do any talking. I don't run my mouth.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

Losing one grounds you a bit. I learned a lot after losing the title in 2009, learned that I was probably too intense that year, and when I didn't win, I just felt horrible.

The message I want to give my fans is, always have a way to pull yourself out of the dark place. Don't sit and cry about it. Have your moment, and then get over it.

When you're in hell, you forget how great you really are because you're suffering and you forget the great things you've done.

I used a lot of sports psychologists when I was younger... sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.

Most of my best games were when I felt crap - I could hardly move on the morning of the World Cup semi-final in 1990 - but there's a thing called adrenaline that gets you through.

Doubt can be good because it means you want to improve: you want to be a better person, a better player. But it's also good not to have too many doubts on the court.

To play with pressure is always a good thing. I like to play with pressure.

Boxing is a lonely sport and when you lose it's hard to take and it's hard to get over.