HomeNews Mental skills, confidence and goal setting for youth soccer players
Mental skills, confidence and goal setting for youth soccer players
Written by Steve Watson
Thursday, 02 July 2009
A quick note to let you know
that Bill Blyth has added a new section on Premium Soccer Coaching entitled
'mental skills, confidence and goal setting'.
It's a series of four articles:
Mental Skills
Building
Confidence
Goal Setting
Principles
Setting Match
Goals
You can read a short extract from Mental Skills below.
Membership of Premium is really amazing value - less than £20 gets you
lifetime access to the technical syllabus, the 56 session plans, 97 drills and
games and the comprehensive coaching notes - all written by a UEFA coach
specially for footy4kids.
That works out at around 13p for each of the tried and tested drills and
practice plans!!
All written by a UEFA coach specifically for youth soccer coaches like you and
me.
Every drill and game is fully illustrated and downloadable.
And it's all backed up by 24/7 email support!
And you get a complimentary copy of Paul Cooper's Small Sided Games when you join!!
Membership of Premium could be best investment you ever made as a coach.
"The mind is the athlete, the body simply the means it uses to run
faster, hit further, or box better" - Bryce Courteney.
For a player to achieve their real potential in football it requires more than
natural talent. Many gifted players fail to succeed because they lack mental
strength. At many professional clubs sport-psychologists are now an important
part of the coaching staff.
As in the area of fitness training, we have to be realistic about what we can
hope to achieve within the context of our club. Without realising it however,
all junior coaches get involved in a lot more football psychology than they may
be aware of. Even with the limited time we have available to us, there is much
we can do to assist our young players improve this area of their game.
Consider some of the common characteristics of players you may have worked
with...
Hiding from the
ball during a game because they think all the other players are better
Thinking they
are better than the rest of his team and disrupting team spirit
Constantly
criticising every mistake by other members of the team
Looking for a
pass instead of taking a shot because of fear of failure
Head goes down
when the team are losing
Loss of temper,
arguing with opposition players and the referee
Failure to
communicate with his team-mates during a game
Being disruptive
and uncooperative during training session
Being reluctant
to do the hard work to win the ball backSulking if they are not getting
their own way.
All of these issues are symptoms of players who
need help to improve one or more aspects of their mental game and there are a
number of things we can do - apart from just sacking them.
Just as fitness is a general word that encompasses a number of different
aspects, and the same player may be strong in one area and weak in another, so
too with mental strength. It is made up of a number of different qualities and
there are probably as many different ways of defining these as there are books
on the subject.
The following breakdown by British Olympic Association Psychologist, Dr Chris
Harwood is particularly helpful. He identifies six aspects of mental toughness
known as the six C's.
Read the rest of this article and the other three in the series. And get all
the Premium drills, games, session plans, coaching notes PLUS your free copy of
Small Sided Games!!
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