During the last 30 years, “it’s coming home” has become one of the most recognisable slogans in English football. 

Since its release before England’s 1996 European Championship campaign, Three Lions has become synonymous with the team’s pursuit of success. Although intended to be a humorous and ironic take on over-optimism, representing decades of disappointment and hope, to many, particularly England’s opponents, it has become a symbol of arrogance, and reflects the high expectancies placed on the England team to win every tournament they enter.    

Performance expectancies surrounding the England team always intensify during major tournaments, creating national anticipation of victory.  

Ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, England were widely reported to be among the favourites to win, based on factors such as recent performances, a favourable group draw, and the quality of the squad. These factors shape performance expectancies - and those expectations can have lasting effects on everyone involved, as our research has shown, over the years.  

Performance expectancies are not unique to football. Athletes across all sports experience expectancies from multiple sources including coaches, governing bodies, teammates, opponents, the media, family, friends, and the public. With an exciting sporting calendar ahead featuring events including Wimbledon and the Commonwealth Games, understanding how expectancies develop, and their consequences, is important for supporting performance and wellbeing.  

Our research over the last decade, has shown that expectancies can have both constructive and negative effects on athletes. Performance expectancies can benefit athletes, boosting their confidence, motivation, and profile. However, accumulating expectancies from multiple sources over prolonged periods can be detrimental.  

In some of our findings, athletes have reported consequences such as reduced confidence, fear of failure, nausea, shaking, and underperformance. One athlete even described symptoms that could be likened to post-traumatic stress disorder. And expectancies do not end when the final whistle blows. Our recent findings indicate that athletes also experience public facing expectancies which have consequences that follow them long after they retire. Taken together this demonstrates the enduring impact that expectancies can have in elite sport.  

But it is not just the athletes themselves who experience performance expectancies. Athletes do not operate in isolation. They are supported by a network of people, including partners and parents, who often play a central role throughout an athlete's development and career.  

Recent public scrutiny directed at Arsenal and England midfielder Declan Rice's partner about her appearance, illustrates how public-facing expectancies can influence an athlete and their family.   

And our upcoming research, demonstrates that while athletes can experience some benefits from expectancies, their parents described feeling the accumulation of expectancies on the athlete as omnipresent, with little opportunity for respite. They evaluated the expectancies and their consequences negatively, reporting anxiety, frustration, persistent worry, irritability, interpersonal conflict, poor concentration, and fear of the athlete not achieving the expectancies.  

Some blamed themselves for encouraging their child's sporting career. One parent reflected: "We should never have encouraged her to get to that stage, it was cruel."   

These consequences may be unsurprising. Our research has demonstrated that athletes who fail to meet performance expectancies, can be labelled as a "disappointment" in the media. Parents feared that the athletes were placed on a pedestal, making the consequences of falling short greater. Rather than celebrating success, parents described feeling relief when the expectancies were met.   

Many of the consequences experienced by parents mirrored those reported by athletes. This could reflect the close emotional bond between parents and children, within which emotions may become contagious. Parents also described suppressing their own emotions to avoid increasing the athlete’s perceptions of pressure and preparing to “catch them if they fall”, acting as a protective buffer, although this can come at a cost.  

Despite being central members of an elite athlete's support network, parents are often overlooked. Our findings suggest they would benefit from support to manage the expectancies accompanying elite sport. Whilst tailored sport psychology support would be ideal, with limited funding across UK sport, lower-cost approaches may be more realistic.  

Peer support networks, online guidance, and practical resources designed specifically for parents could help reduce feelings of isolation whilst providing strategies to manage the consequences of the expectancies.  

With many athletes this summer carrying the hopes of the nation, our concern should not only be on whether trophies are "coming home", but on the consequences of the weight of expectancy for the athletes and their support networks.  

This piece is informed by a cumulation of research conducted by Dr Helen Heaviside-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Dr Tim Gomersall, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, and Adam Nolan, MSc Psychology (Conversion) student at Leeds Trinity University.