How One Breath supported team performance at FIFA ahead of the World Cup
Context
As the FIFA Commercial Partnerships team entered the final stretch ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, FIFA invited One Breath to design and deliver a customized in-person workshop at its headquarters in Zurich. The aim was to support a key team working at the heart of a major global event, and to equip them with practical tools and a shared framework for maintaining clarity, focus, communication, and strong collaboration during an exceptionally demanding period. The team was operating across time zones and cultures, managing global partners, travelling extensively, and navigating the scale and pace that come with preparing for the largest tournament in FIFA World Cup history.
This collaboration reflected a forward-looking investment in team effectiveness. FIFA wanted to create space for a high-performing team to pause, reflect, and strengthen the conditions that help people do their best work together when expectations are high. For One Breath, this was an opportunity to bring a practical and performance-oriented methodology into a setting where teamwork, communication, and disciplined execution matter enormously.
The challenge
In the lead-up to a major tournament, performance is shaped not only by expertise and planning, but also by how a team communicates, supports one another, protects focus, and stays aligned over time. For the Commercial Partnerships team, the period ahead required sustained coordination, sound judgment, and a strong sense of shared responsibility. The intensity of the work, the global nature of the team’s interactions, and the pace of decision-making made this an important moment to reinforce the habits and mindsets that support excellence under pressure.
FIFA’s objective was to support the team with an experience that was relevant to their reality and directly applicable to their work. The workshop was designed to help participants think more intentionally about the human side of performance in a high-stakes environment. That included how to remain clear-headed during demanding periods, how to communicate in ways that preserve trust and momentum, how to build empowering team dynamics, and how to sustain a winning mindset while respecting personal boundaries and maintaining consistency.
This focus is highly relevant for senior teams and complex global functions. In fast-moving environments, strong results depend on a combination of technical competence and relational excellence. Teams need people who can stay focused under pressure, collaborate across differences, and contribute to a culture where support, accountability, and performance reinforce one another. FIFA’s brief recognized that reality and approached it in a constructive way, by investing in the team behind the scenes, the people whose work helps make the visible success of a global tournament possible.
The methodology
One Breath designed a customized, in-person interactive workshop for up to 30 participants, combining science-based insights, storytelling, guided reflection, discussion, partner exercises, Q&A, and practical tools, supported by a workbook and post-session resources. The session was designed to be experiential and immediately relevant to the team’s day-to-day reality, giving participants the opportunity to engage actively with the content and translate it into concrete habits and team practices.
Our methodology in this work combines performance psychology, leadership development, and practical facilitation. For FIFA, that translated into a session focused on the specific dynamics that shape team performance in a high-pressure, global environment:
Clarity and composure under pressure
Participants explored what helps people stay centered, focused, and deliberate when intensity rises, drawing on science, practical techniques, and examples from elite athletes and high-performing teams.
Communication as a performance capability
The workshop examined how communication shapes alignment, trust, speed, and collaboration, especially in a multicultural team working across stakeholders, time zones, and compressed timelines.
Team dynamics and mutual support
A central theme of the session was how strong teams create practical systems of support, reduce friction, and strengthen shared responsibility when demands increase.
Boundaries, routines, and performance discipline
The conversation included the habits and boundaries that protect quality of thinking, consistency, and contribution during periods of travel, long hours, and sustained delivery.
Applied reflection and practical integration
Through guided reflection, dialogue, and interactive exercises, participants were invited to connect the ideas directly to their own context and define what strong collaboration, communication, and mindset look like in their environment.
This approach reflects how One Breath works with organizations more broadly. We design experiences that are psychologically grounded, operationally relevant, and tailored to the client’s reality, helping teams strengthen both the inner disciplines and the relational patterns that support high performance.
The impact
The impact of the workshop was to support the FIFA Commercial Partnerships team with a structured and relevant experience at an important moment in the World Cup cycle. The session helped reinforce a shared language around focus, support, communication, and performance under pressure. It also gave participants a practical framework for thinking about how they contribute to team effectiveness in a complex, fast-moving, and highly visible environment.
More specifically, the workshop supported:
Stronger awareness of how pressure affects communication and team dynamics
Greater intentionality around clarity, focus, and day-to-day collaboration
A more explicit understanding of mutual support as part of performance
Practical reflection on habits and boundaries that help sustain contribution over time
A reinforced connection between individual discipline and collective success
If you’d like to explore how similar team-building work can support your teams or leadership groups, check out our work and schedule an introductory call.