Leif Smerud had already fallen in love with London when, on a post-season football tour to the city as a young player, he discovered a blues club on Kingly Street in Soho, Ain’t Nothin’ But …, where he likes to enjoy live music. He has adored coaching since first taking sessions at the Stavanger club Vidar, whose young team included the future Fulham defender Brede Hangeland. In the past two months, combining those passions, he has fallen for Crystal Palace because of their “underdog, competitive spirit”, since becoming their women’s team manager. Now, to try to save their top-flight status, he must call upon the skills he has honed in another of the loves of his professional life: psychology.
Smerud, having studied and taught sport psychology academically and worked as a clinical psychologist at a private practice, is as qualified as anybody to discuss the mental side of football. “I was very keen, when I was very young, to understand how some teams have great players but don’t perform,” he says, “while other teams have much lesser names but they perform.” How, then, can this expertise help Palace’s mentality as they enter their final three games knowing that they need to win all three to have any chance of avoiding relegation back to the Women’s Championship?
“The key thing is to make an environment where people are willing to take risks,” says the former caretaker manager of the Norway men’s and women’s teams. “If you can find the courage and take risks, you increase your chances, because it’s easy to sort of ‘die slowly’ by trying to be safe and not take any risks. I don’t think that is helpful, so you need to have an attitude of courage and bravery, and that takes a culture. That takes a leadership to build, and we’ll see if we can do that now. It’s been challenging but there’s still a chance.”
Seven points behind Aston Villa and Leicester, Palace will be relegated on Sunday if they fail to beat West Ham at home but Smerud is determined to ensure his team do not give up. He recalls needing three straight wins to qualify for the 2023 Under-21 men’s European Championship when working as Norway’s coach and succeeding: “I know it’s possible to mobilise, and I absolutely love these challenges. It can be done, for sure, and I have first-hand experience of doing it, so if we can just get our performances up to the level that we need, I’m sure we can do it. But it’s on us. We need help, of course, but it’s possible.”
Smerud was appointed by Palace on 1 March, a day after the sacking of Laura Kaminski, who had guided the team to promotion, and the 48-year-old took charge of his first game on the following day, a 1-0 defeat against Liverpool. Asked what attracted him to the job, he says he connected with the club’s “values”: “What Palace is and what they want to be and become, that was a no-brainer for me. I love to work with people and the ‘team’ aspect is the key. I felt that there was a deeper connection to Palace straight away, in the talks I had, and that’s important to me.
“I couldn’t be in this if it was only tactics and that part. It’s about something more, building character, building an experience for people to watch. It’s a spirit there, an underdog competitive spirit [at Palace], trying to think of good ways to compete, and to be a bit original in trying to find competitive advantages. Trying to build, not only buy, and that connection is vital. That was my impression and that was what I went for.”
Smerud has overseen six matches, winning one and losing five, the latest 4-0 at Chelsea, when Palace were reduced to 10 players shortly after half-time. The sole victory – against relegation rivals Villa in March – gave his team “proof” of what they can do, Smerud says: “There was a lot of pressure on it. If we’d lost that one, we would have sort of been ‘gone’, and that’s pressure to play with that, so we put in a good performance. It was a deserved win, so we can take a lot from that.”
When Palace came up, most people expected them to go straight back down, not least because it happened to Bristol City last term. City picked up six points, a total Palace have surpassed with their nine, but the gap between the divisions is proving to be more of a chasm.
Sign up toMoving the Goalposts
No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women’s football
after newsletter promotion
“In my first four senior years as a player I went up and down, up and down, between levels two and three in Norway, so I have experience with the change of league and quality, and a lot of times when teams go up the first time, they don’t manage to stay there, but if they get another chance they have learned a lot,” Smerud says. “And hopefully we can learn quickly and stay there – there’s still a chance for that – and if not we have to learn and reorganise to get there in the next round. That’s the challenge.
“Palace are in the WSL for the first time and to stay there the clear goal and mission. It still is. But there was also an understanding; there’s a realism about things as well where you really fight and compete for everything you can but of course we know it’s not going to be easy. All the focus I’ve had so far is to fulfil that mission, and we’ll try until the bitter end.”