The coach from County Durham has steered the hosts into round of 16 at the Women’s World Cup and hopes psychology can help his team overturn scepticism in an ice hockey-obsessed country

John Herdman’s ultimate dream is to manage Newcastle United but, for the moment at least, he is more than content to be coaching the host nation at Canada 2015.

Despite some unconvincing performances Herdman’s side have topped Group A and are through to the knockout stage. Rarely understated, the diminutive 39-year-old from Consett in County Durham is brilliant at talking up a team who now head to Vancouver for a last-16 meeting with Switzerland on Sunday.

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Should Canada click into a hitherto slightly elusive rhythm it could exert a transformative effect on the way an entire nation views “soccer”, particularly the women’s game. Alternatively, further struggles and a swift exit might well confirm widespread suspicions about the game in this ice hockey-obsessed country.

As the Globe and Mail’s reporter puts it: “Interest diminishes, TV ratings slide and the sizzle just fizzles.” There is a clear imperative for Christine Sinclair, the side’s star striker, and her team-mates to sell themselves to their compatriots, but the expatriate coach remains undeterred.

After growing up among Sunderland fans in Consett, Herdman knows how to take a jibe or three. Indeed a man thrilled to lead Canada out at St James’ Park during the 2012 Olympics, where his team won bronze, remains confident the only way is up. “We want to get closer to the USA,” he says. “We want to try to win the World Cup.”

Like José Mourinho, Herdman is a former teacher. Having trained in Leeds he returned to Consett to teach PE at his old school, simultaneously establishing a Brazilian football-skills academy. As word of his innovative techniques spread around the region he crossed tribal lines to help coach Sunderland’s youth sides and also lectured in sports science at Newcastle’s Northumbria University.

An invitation came to move to New Zealand to assist the development of women’s football. Soon he was not only coaching the national team but also drafting a radical blueprint for overhauling a game hitherto moribund in a netball bastion. After “taking it with both hands” he presided over qualification for both the 2007 and 2011 World Cups before being poached by Canada.

An appreciation of the importance of the emotional side of coaching acquired in New Zealand has crossed the oceans with him. The need to capture hearts as well as minds was something he learnt when fathoming out how to manage Kristy Hill, one of the team’s Maori leaders. “Kristy taught me you have to touch the heart before you can take the hand,” he says. “It’s a belief I’ve maintained.”

Now Herdman, his wife and their two children are settled in Vancouver – or at least until he receives a call saying Steve McClaren has changed his mind about taking over at St James’ Park – where he has developed a sideline as a public speaker specialising in motivation.

“I love Newcastle but I love Canada too,” he says. “I feel at home here and I feel I can have a positive influence. The only thing I miss is watching Newcastle United live.”

He frequently addresses audiences on leadership and conditioning the human brain to accept risk in order to achieve success.

“My job is to fuel passion in people so they see a bigger vision of themselves,” he has said. “The conversations I’m having with Christine Sinclair are not about winning a trophy at this point in her life. It’s about what legacy she leaves for her country. That fuels something different in her.”

By the time he celebrates his 40th birthday next month he hopes to have created his own legacy. Growing up in Consett after the closure of the town’s steelworks Herdman witnessed unemployment, drugs, alcohol and petty crime prompting “the human mind to really sabotage people”, and became intrigued by psychology.

Deepened by his father’s acute problems with depression, this fascination has convinced him that football really is played as much in the head as with the feet. “If you don’t understand the brain you can’t understand coaching” is one of his mantras.

Sinclair claims Herdman is “the best coach I’ve ever had” but she and her team-mates needed to adjust to his computerised “brain gym” where players watch images on computer screens remotely controlled by electrodes stuck to their heads. Depending on the player’s stress level the images – typically an animal or a boat – move fast or slowly.

After assessing the results Herdman helps individuals to control stress through breathing exercises and positive thinking. The idea is to train the brain as if it were a muscle and reduce the sort of rash on-pitch decisions Newcastle United made far too many of last season.

“We want to set the bar high,” he says. “We want to aim high and make sure 2015 is a memorable year for Canada.”