Mind, heart, and The Beautiful Game

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is fast emerging as one of the most influential ideas in modern performance culture — from corporate boardrooms to football dressing rooms. Once dismissed as a “soft skill,” it’s now recognised as a measurable, teachable framework for understanding and managing emotions — both our own and those of others. At its essence, EI is about aligning mind and heart to drive clearer thinking, calmer reactions, and more courageous behaviour.  As awareness grows, teams and organisations are realising that emotional intelligence isn’t a luxury — it’s a competitive advantage.

Football offers vivid proof. When teams rediscover their rhythm and turn results around, it’s often the emotional side of the game that coaches highlight — not a new tactical tweak, but a shift in mindset, connection, and belief. Increasingly, the best managers are seen as part tactician, part therapist, guiding players through the mental and emotional challenges that shape performance.  One Serie A coach last year when asked when is captain would play again responded "when he starts to look like he is having fun again".

To explore this evolving landscape, Bonito sat down with Nick Atzeni, a leading practitioner and advocate for Emotional Intelligence, to discuss how EI is transforming the way coaches, players, and communities understand leadership, resilience, and human connection.

Bonito: Can you tell us a bit about the emerging field of Emotional Intelligence (EI)? What is it, and what is it not?

Nick: Emotional Intelligence, in its simplest form, is the ability to identify rising emotions, regulate triggers, and then use those regulated emotions to behave and perform in alignment with both mind and heart. It aims to inform our thoughts through our emotional drives, allowing us to adapt our behaviours while considering both. Thoughts, emotions, and behaviours gain harmony. Of course, it starts with ourselves and extends to how we relate to others.

A mantra I love to use is Calmness, Clarity, and Courage — this is what EI can empower us with. By understanding our emotions and learning to regulate them, we gain Calmness. With calmness, we can see more clearly, balancing what we think and what we feel, so Clarity can take place — both emotional and intellectual. Finally, this process manifests externally through our behaviours, as Courage: the courage to make changes, to adapt, to speak out in the right way when needed, and to hold back when we realise it’s not necessary.

It will also be the title of the book I’m writing — at some point!

People are becoming more self-aware; they want to, and they feel the urge to, because they’ve understood that it’s the key to professional success and the source of personal wellbeing — hence, holistic wellbeing.

For those who stop blaming others and believe that “everything starts with us,” EI is a must-have. The good news is that Emotional Intelligence can be developed, measured, and is available to anyone who feels ready.

We cannot avoid having emotions — hiding them doesn’t solve the issue. But by developing EI, we can avoid giving poor responses and regretting our behaviours later.

“No man is free who is not master of himself.” — Epictetus

Bonito: How do you think football coaches — both grassroots and elite — can benefit from incorporating EI into their sessions?

Nick: Football coaches — or better said, the best football coaches — at any level, are not just routine trainers but educators who can bring people together and keep them together, especially when things don’t go as planned. They are the glue of the team — the ones who set the culture, the style, and the philosophy to perform by.

They adapt and evolve depending on the context and the people, never losing the authentic behaviours that make them unique and enable them to lead with naturalness and authenticity.

Emotional Intelligence empowers coaches with both self-awareness and the ability to understand others. The impact of this knowledge becomes tangible when a team is united, cohesive, mutually supportive, and cooperative — in both joy and adversity.

Integrating EI training, courses, and Emotional Quotient reports can equip coaches at any level with the capability to understand the human being before the athlete. This builds teams founded on human values, which naturally translates into mutual commitment, shared trust, and collective success — for the team and the coach alike.

Conscious sport is indeed a powerful instrument to bring people together through healthy competition that ends in mutual gratitude and reflection. How often do we see that?

Bonito: From a public health perspective, many countries fail to provide enough resources for the mental health of their citizens. As a focal point for many young people, what do you see as the benefits to society of integrating more EI training into regular sports activities?

Nick: This is a great, eye-opening point — thank you for bringing it to the table.

Emotional Intelligence empowers people — literally anyone — with self-regulating techniques, behavioural awareness, and self-control. If individuals are able to gain greater control — by which I mean emotional, mental, and behavioural control — we would have a more self-aware society: people capable of self-reassurance, self-support, and, importantly, of asking for help when they recognise that they need it. It’s about assertiveness — emotional and psychological assertiveness — and the ability to detect toxic relationships, gaslighting behaviours, and negative patterns of thinking.

Sport is a brilliant hook: a powerful way to combine learning and play, to merge deep reflection and relaxation, and to maximise the learning process.

Through sport, we can integrate essential life skills that improve relationships between members of the community — across all ages, backgrounds, and social statuses. After all, we are all part of, and contributors to, the same community.

Bonito: Can you tell us a bit about some of the projects or clients you’ve worked with in the football world?

Nick: One I’ve had — and still have — the honour of working with (and am authorised to share) is Patrick Mboma, the African football legend, fourth all-time top goal-scorer for the Cameroon national team, World Cup player in 1998 and 2000, and African Footballer of the Year in 2000, when he led Cameroon to Olympic Gold.

Today, Patrick is a TV commentator and public figure — a role that involves constant human interaction and emotional stimulation. Needless to say, a lot of Emotional Intelligence is needed there!

After working together, Patrick once told me: “Nick, what you do in football is incredibly useful. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have known about this behavioural science.” His words resonated deeply, and from that moment years ago, I began intentionally bringing EI into football — for athletes, coaches, agents, scouts, clubs, academies, and all those who form part of the football ecosystem.

I also work with his son, Kenji Mboma Dem, currently playing for Cincinnati FC in Major League Soccer. Kenji’s most meaningful feedback has been that he’s now better able to communicate with his family — helping them to support him with healthy boundaries, rather than in ways they think he needs. He’s developed self-responsibility, autonomy, self-reliance, confidence, and a stronger sense of control over his own life — crucial qualities for any athlete, and any human being more broadly.

With agents and scouts, I’m often asked to support players’ soft-skills development through EQ questionnaires, feedback delivery, and tailored action plans — for example, to help a player manage the transition to a new club or culture without feeling overwhelmed. This allows scouts and agents to understand where to place and how to support players most effectively.

When I work directly with scouts, we also explore how to assess players’ emotional intelligence in advance — observing behaviours that indicate high or low EI. This helps them understand players not just technically, but humanly, which is vital for fitting into team dynamics and representing a club’s values and philosophy.

Qualities such as self-esteem, resilience, confidence, and self-reliance all stem from self-knowledge and from our rational and emotional processes. Today, these can be measured and tracked over time. Ultimately, our thoughts and emotions become tangible through behaviours, mindsets, and performance.

Bonito: Tell us a bit about your own personal relationship with football.

Nick: I didn’t expect this question — I usually avoid talking about myself — but yes, happy to share!

I played football from the age of five to sixteen, then restarted with futsal from eighteen to twenty. I think it’s worth sharing what I learned from those experiences in terms of emotional dynamics.

As a teenager, I was chubby — good feet but slow. I was an effective striker, but not much help when it came to dropping into midfield to collect the ball. We were a good team — a group of friends — and several of them were invited for trials with Serie A side Cagliari Calcio, our hometown club. I received the same feedback every time: “Good feet, but he needs to lose weight.”

Rejection, disappointment, self-doubt, lack of confidence, and low self-esteem — these were all emotions I had to experience first-hand. Today, I’m grateful I can use those lessons to help athletes and others navigate similar feelings.

When I later played futsal, I was fit — very fit — and fortunately, my touch was still there. Playing in Serie D and C2, I experienced a completely different set of emotional dynamics. In my first season, I averaged 2.8 goals per match, so opponents knew me before they even saw me play. My teammates relied heavily on me, as though I had to carry the team — even though I didn’t want that pressure. I found myself targeted by opponents and celebrated by fans, which created its own form of pressure — expectations, performance anxiety, and self-criticism. I was striving for perfection — or perhaps the illusion of it.

Football taught me a great deal about managing emotions and expectations, handling pressure, and coping with anxiety — because, in truth, emotions directly influence performance. Thoughts, emotions, and motor skills are one system in constant interaction.

Bonito: Reflecting on your journey in football — and sport for social good — is there a particular moment or experience that profoundly touched you and reinforced your commitment to this work?

Nick: Following on from the previous question, I’d say my most touching experiences come from working with parents and athletes. It’s incredibly moving to be the person who helps them improve communication and mutual understanding — between fathers and sons, daughters, or even partners. As children grow into teenagers and adults, the dynamics shift constantly, and that can be confusing and painful for parents trying to keep up. Misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict often follow.

It’s an honour for me to help restore calmness, clarity, listening, serenity, and mutual love — to help families reconnect in a healthier, happier way. Seeing those relationships improve fuels my purpose. There is no greater reward than contributing to someone’s happiness, peace, and self-understanding.

Each time I witness that transformation, it feels like improving society drop by drop — leaving behind an educational legacy based on emotional and behavioural awareness that will continue long after me.

We are emotional beings. When we feel emotionally aligned, all our relationships improve — especially the one we have with ourselves.

Bonito: Where do you see Emotional Intelligence developing as a field over the next five years?

Nick: Mental wellbeing is increasingly recognised as the key success factor for teams and organisations — not just in theory, but through measurable data and real outcomes.

In sport, Emotional Intelligence is already embedded in elite environments. The NFL, NBA, professional golf, and Formula 1 teams all work with sports psychologists to keep athletes’ minds sharp. Seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, for example, has spoken openly about using meditation to manage pressure.

In football, many top teams already embrace psychology and EI to enhance performance — Liverpool FC, Chelsea FC, Real Madrid, and the England Women’s Team, to name just a few. The Premier League even requires Category One academies to employ a sports psychologist.

The direction is clear — and interest is becoming necessity.

Beyond sport, the data speaks for itself:

• Individuals with high Emotional Intelligence earn, on average, $29,000 more than those with lower EQ (TalentSmart).
• Organisations that prioritise EQ are 22 times more likely to outperform competitors (Six Seconds).
• Around 90% of senior leaders’ success is attributed to EQ — making it twice as important as IQ (Daniel Goleman).
• 75% of Fortune 500 companies invest in EQ training for their teams (Forbes).

EQ is now essential for career advancement, performance improvement, and creating a competitive edge — for both individuals and organisations.

More and more companies and sports entities are investing in EI development, equipping their teams with training that first generates personal wellbeing, and consequently, collective success. They’re recognising the return on investment that comes from improving human skills and relationships — the true drivers of performance.

At the end of the day, it’s people who create organisations. When people feel good, they perform better. When they know how to listen and communicate, they understand each other on a completely different level — creating clarity, cohesion, and purpose.

The numbers are growing — the coaches, practitioners, and training providers are growing — and EI itself is expanding rapidly. Driven by greater self-awareness and by organisations searching for an edge, Emotional Intelligence can only continue to grow.

Ultimately, that means better workplaces, better sports environments — and, I believe, a better society.

Bonito: A big thank you for joining us, Nick. We at Bonito truly believe that EI and EQ have a major role to play in our mission of making every grassroots football coach a social impact practitioner.

Nick: Thank you, Bonito Football and Jamie Elovsson, for highlighting the importance of Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Quotient reports. It’s been a pleasure answering such thoughtful and thought-provoking questions — insightful even from my own self-reflective standpoint.