Akke-Jeanne Klerk

What soccer teaches us about the game of life

soccer and the psyche

Soccer is the world's most popular sport. It is the dominant sport in most of Europe, South America, Africa, and large parts of Asia and the Middle East.

Soccer unfolds in in public, at full intensity. And everything that is true about a player eventually becomes visible on the field. How they handle pressure. Whether they trust themselves when it matters most. What they do when the dream is slipping away. How they show up when the world is watching and the outcome is uncertain.

These are not just sporting questions. They are the questions of a human life. Depth psychology has always been drawn to exactly these moments. What lives underneath? In depth psychology we focus on what the deeper self is quietly trying to express.

Seen through this lens, soccer becomes a living image of the psyche. A metaphor.

What Are You Really Chasing? Inner Gold vs Outer Gold

Every player who has ever given everything to their sport knows the feeling. That pull toward something just beyond reach. The desire to prove something. To win. To be seen. To matter.

In the oldest stories we have, gold represents the highest value. Gold is the full realization of our own deepest potential. The experience of being completely alive in what we are doing.


This means the player chasing the golden ball is chasing a result and they are also chasing a feeling. And so are we in our work, in our relationships, in the creative projects we keep almost starting, in the conversations we keep almost having.

Depth psychology invites us to ask: are you chasing outer gold or inner gold? Outer gold is the achievement the world can see and confirm. Inner gold is the feeling of living authentically, of expressing something real, of knowing, regardless of what the scoreboard says, that you held nothing back. We experience a deeper kind of joy, when we are in touch with our own inner gold. 

When we confuse the two, we can spend a lifetime chasing something that will never quite deliver what we were really looking for.

Identity, the Shadow, and the Story You Tell About Yourself

Identity is the answer to the question: who am I? And what follows that question is always a story. A collection of experiences, roles, and qualities we have come to call ourselves. I am someone who works hard. I am a team player. I am not someone who gives up.


These stories are not wrong. They give us direction and help us belong. But the story that once protected us can, over time, start to limit us. The athlete who built their entire sense of worth around being the best becomes fragile the moment someone better arrives. The team that clings to a style of play that no longer fits its players keeps losing and cannot understand why.

In depth psychology, what gets excluded from our identity becomes the shadow. The shadow refers to the parts of ourselves we did not know how to include. The vulnerability in the strong person. The playfulness in the serious professional. The anger in the one who prides themselves on harmony.


The invitation is to hold your identity a little more lightly. Stay curious about the parts of yourself the story might be leaving out. And allow new stories to come in. 

Self-Belief in Sport and in Life, What Depth Psychology Says

Self-belief is one of the most talked-about qualities in sport and in life. And one of the most misunderstood, I think. In daily life I hear people say they want to believe in themselves as if it were simple. As if you could just decide. But real self-belief is not a thought. It is a permission, the permission to act on what matters to you before you know how it will turn out.

It often starts with someone who sees something in you before you can see it yourself. A parent who encourages you to develop. A coach who puts you in a position nobody expected. A mentor who says: I think you can do this. A moment of recognition that plants something in you and keeps growing long after the person is gone.


Slowly, if conditions are right, that outer belief becomes inner belief until one day you no longer need the other person to confirm what you already know.


The balance worth practicing is this: confident enough to act, and humble enough to keep learning. Open enough to let experience teach you without it defeating you. That is not something you achieve once. It is something you return to, in small moments and large ones, for as long as you are playing.

The Golden Ball FM,  Depth Psychology Meets Soccer

The Golden Ball FM is a podcast born from simple curiosity and joy coming from playing and watching the game. We explore the question: What can soccer teach us about the game of life?

First published during the World Cup 2026, it is a collaborative project that takes one theme from the pitch and follows it to a theme in depth psychology, into what it means to be human, into the questions that soccer keeps asking us whether we notice or not.

Like a team finding its rhythm, each episode feels co-creation. The best things happen in the space between people who are willing to think together, challenge each other, and follow the ball wherever it goes.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or here on Jung Platform.

podcast hosts

Machiel Klerk grew up in a household where soccer players were talked about as heroes and legends.  That early sense that the game carried something mythological never left him. It quietly shaped the way he came to understand depth psychology, and the way he came to understand people. He has a gift for finding the ancient story inside a modern moment, and for making it feel completely natural. When he was young he used to play the game himself as well.

Akke-Jeanne Klerk came to this podcast as a supporter, not a player. She brings the perspective of someone who has always watched the game and observed what happened on the field and in the people watching. She tracks the emotions and the questions that stay long after the final whistle. In the podcast she shares what she observes in soccer players on and off the pitch, and the relationship to personal development.

John O'Brien knows what it feels like when everything is on the line and the whole world is watching. He has stood in that moment, more than once, at the highest level the game offers. He was part of the World Cup in 2002 and 2006 for the USA. What makes him unusual is that he did not leave that experience behind when his playing career ended. He carried it into a psychology practice, and now he brings both into every conversation. He is someone who has lived the questions the podcast asks, not just studied them.

Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or here on Jung Platform.

the golden ball podcast

If you enjoy the podcast, and want to learn more about Jungian psychology, we have two excellent introduction courses. 

- We offer a 6-class course Introduction to Jungian Psychology, is taught by James Hollis, a world renowned Jungian analyst. 
- We also have a shorter course Your individuation that is about your process of growth, from a Jungian perspective, and is Jungian psychology made more practical. 

If you prefer to read more, here is a blog Introduction to Jungian psychology. 

Share

Akke-Jeanne Klerk
Akke-Jeanne is Jung Platform’s co-founder & Jungian Coach. Her background consists of a Master’s in Psychology. She is the author of ‘Psychology of Heartbreak’ (in Dutch) and has offered trainings on coaching, Jungian psychology and personal development, for almost two decades.

Other blog posts