mental training for soccer

I saw your video and have also read all of your posts that you made on this site.

It gives me a good idea on just who you are.

The person making the video has obviously taken a public speaking cource. Are you the person in that video something tells me you might be. Any way the person speaking on the video has his mother and some friends on his left side. But he probably does not have anyone he knows on his right side. He should have done that because he looked to his left about 70 percent more then he looked to his right. I notice little things like that. He has a microphone so he does not have to worry about the people in the back hearing him speak. He should have put some one he knows in the back any way.

Well on positive thinking reinforcement when your not playing. It works I have been doing that since I have been playing our football and American football since I was a kid. Day before a game I would visualize what I would do in that game especially after I went to bed. That worked for me. Nobody taught me to do it I just did it. Hell Maximus even mentioned it to his men before they went into battle against Germania in the Gladiator .

I have been coaching since 1970 even when I was still an active player.

On remembering the bad things from the past. Well I do that I don't remember the good things of the past most of the time. It might be because a lot of bad things happened to me as a kid. Everyone did not live in Disney land I know I didn't. But now years later when I think back on it. It seems more like Disney land now to me crazy right?

One thing that maybe I could have used in the video. There are certain players who are just not good at headers. No matter how good you taught them to do it. They never did it so I always thought they never really wanted to head the ball. Maybe with positive thinking of them picturing themselves doing when they are not at practice. Then see if they can do it in real games.

Sometimes it looked like they can't judge the ball.

What I used to do is working on them just getting their body on the ball with no defenders no keeper. Then just stay with the ball until they can put it in the back of the net.

 

Looks like an info-mercial to me. Pepperdine is in Florida. You are in Florida. Coincidence? If you are plugging, this thread should be deleted. If you are not related to the speaker and don't have permission to use the clip, then your post of his speech may be illegal.

Mentality is one of the four pillars. Every coach is always training mentality, whether the coach is aware of what he is teaching or not.

For Zone 1 and 2, feel good positive thinking platitudes, which is what I assume the clip is about (I stopped watching when the speaker reached the podium), has more to do with coaching methods than with Mentality. This kind of rah rah stuff becomes relevant when you reach the point of preparing athletes for consistency during competitions and dealing with high stress situations. For most of the early development process, you don't want to put the athlete in a high stress situation.

 

On positive reinforcement from the coach. There are some things players don't believe they can do. For them to believe they can do it they have to see that you believe they can do it. The coach really has to believe it because players can tell when you don't.

Like your so called best players are not there or you are playing short players. You as a coach really have to believe the team can still win the game. You have to make them believe they can still win the game.

How do you do it? We practice it also we start friendly games playing short players for a half. Then we add players after that. So when it happens in real games they really believe they can still win and so do I.

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On mistakes they know mistakes did not bother me. I want them to make mistakes in practice because that is how they learn. They learn from their mistakes.

When a team get's behind in a game. They start to get tired. Get behind by more then a goal they start to get real tired. If they lose their exhausted after the game.

But if they get a head they are less tired. If they get 2 goals a head they are not very tired at all. If they win they feel they can play another game right after that game.

It is all mental. If they get behind in a game and they really believe they only have to put five passes to gether to get the a goal their still fresh. Even if they get 2 goals behind. They still believe they can win the game. But if they lose you want them to believe they lost because they just ran out of time. So they don't cry when they lose.

They just want to get on with it and practice for the next match.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think sports pyschology is important. I just prefer reading a Harry Dorfman book to watching some info-mercial.

 

So how has this improved your game? What club do you play for and what division. I am going to be in Berlin and Dresdin during May 7 to the 13. I arrive on the 6th and leave on the 14 mainly to visit my Grandson Henry. But always have time to see a game. Give me your team name and where you play and your schedule and I will catch a game.

 

My apologies for suspecting that you were promoting a commercial product. It happens here a lot.

Sports pyschology for professional athletes is mainstream here in the US and widely recognized as important to consistent performance. The first instance I recall of its systematic use in the US in the sport of soccer was with the women's national team in the 1999 world cup. The coaching staff included a sports pyschologist. MLS wasn't formed until 1996, so the field grew up around other sports: Baseball and golf are sports where consistency is extremely important. Harvey Dorfman was the leading mental skills coach in the US before his death last year. He began working with professional baseball players in 1984 and has written a number of books.

While sports pyschology is important for all coaches, coaches at the beginning of the player development spectrum are not concerned about match performance. Rather we are more concerned about developing confidence, mental toughness, and a love of sport generally and soccer specifically. Insisting on consistent performance in a developing athlete tends to create a risk-adverse atmosphere, which does not promote player development. This is why I say for youth coaches we apply sports pyschology in how we coach. For instance we may incorporate visualization into our exercises, but we would not have a separate visualization exercise like a professional player would use to prepare for a match.

 

FYI, Pepperdine is in California.

 

I have used visualisation exercises and I do believe it has helped after repeated use. Thinking positive at all times, every thought you think, learning not to dwell on a mistake etc. It has a lot to do with mindset.

I repeatedly visualised a way of beating an opponent a certain way in the centre for a week, 15 min sessions and that next game I managed it with ease. I think it works and I am going to continue to use it.

 

What ages are we talking about? I can tell you that keeping the kids out of Chik-Fil-A or Pizza Hut an hour before game time is more important than a sports psychologist..;-) at U-10 and under.

 

Up to and including adult professional teams.

 

I don't know where I found the link but there is a study in Sweden on first division and second division players and none soccer players, all three categories both male and female, where the players all showed higher game intelligence compared to their nonarhlete counterparts, or what the psychologists called executive function. In particular the first division players showed higher executive function than the lower division players.

The study seems to support Bruyninkx approach to training. I kept thinking about him as I read it.

 

Executive function included abstract thinking and problem solving. The conclusion that the study supports Bruyninkx is your conclusion, not the studies. They merely safely concluded that the higher function of the elite athletes was probably due to both nature and nurture (environment and genetic). [Note: I didn't read the paper itself, just an abstract]

My conclusion is that elite players (ones playing at the higher level) are generally those with the best ability in the four pillars, one of which is mentality. It is a chicken and the egg question. I don't think being an elite player made them better players. I think that being better players made them elite players.

As far as Bruyninkx's approach to training, if by that you are referring to including decision making in your training exercises, then you don't need support for it as it has been generally accepted in the coaching community for over 30 years that I know of. If there is any controversey, it is because coaches have forgotten lessons learned by prior generations.

I come from a time when soccer was a player's game. Once the whistle blew, coaches were spectators. Now there are a generation of youth coaches trying to micromanage the players. That brainless approach by the way is the "English" approach as opposed to the "Continental" approach to coaching players (in the Dutch view).

 

By coincidence I happened accross this abstract of a study of rugby players.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22465311

It found that whether a coach's post match feedback was negative or positive significantly affected hormonal levels (in men of course) which are important to performance later in the week. It is only one study, but some objective evidence of what some of us have concluded subjectively about the benefits of positive reinforcement.

 

One aspect of soccer training which I think is neglected at the moment is mental training.

 

www.adeptico.com

I went to a coaching workshop by this company a few years ago and was very impressed. To be honest I have not had the time to continue learning about it, but I have implemented some of the techniques I learned from them and have noticed results. I am not sure it is quite the same type of "mental coaching" as the OP is referring to, but it's definitely a good approach to emphasize game intelligence.

 

Looking for feedback regarding the mental component for young players (u11 travel team). I've just started helping to coach them. We played in a tournament this past weekend, and there was a lot of good and bad. They're an athletic, competitive group, but I was surprised at how fragile they seem to be. When all is going well and they're winning, no problem. As soon as they go down by a goal, however, several of them really seem to fall apart, regardless of how much time is left.

Many of them get the "fake" injuries and cry to come off; a few of them didn't want to go back on. Most of them have been together for 2-3 years; I assume this has been a problem during that time. Neither the head coach or myself are "screamers", and we're certainly not negative. I don't know if parents are somehow putting the kids under too much pressure, or if it comes from the kids themselves. When they go down, they seem to break down and try to do too much themselves. They don't blame each other, which is positive, but they essentially try to go to 5th gear and stop playing as a team and looking to solve problems.

I'm not sure where it comes from, and I'd like to try to help the kids turn that part of the game around.

I've never seen so many young players on one team respond like that. There's always one, but this really surprised me. Any ideas are welcome!

Thanks!

 

There is a lack of confidence in themselves on some of the players on your team. They are not pushing themselves I think you have to put them under some pressure in practice and in games. Next game you play if they just stop playing when there tired, and you think their quitting. Sub them out and don't be in a hurry to put them back in. Tell the sub if your tired walk up and down the field, but don't just stop. If they stop they are telling you they want out so you sub them. Tell that also to the guy you took out later when he asks you why he did not go back in. Do the same if a player says he is hurt if your sure he was not hurt and just wanted out. Next time he will think twice before he asks to be taken out.

Keep telling them all it takes is to put 4 or 5 passes together to get a shot on goal and draw level. If they believe that they won't quit when they get behind. You have to believe that as well. Work on finishing so you will score more when you put those five passes together.

Do drills that push them from attack to falling back behind the ball work on the transition game. Then work on the counterattack right after you win the ball. Can't do itby the third pass then play a possession game.

You want a team full of a winners will to push themselves. Then when you get the lead. Try to make the lead even bigger. It takes time, and it might mean letting go the players who won't push themselves for the players who will.

 

Players who quit at a drop of a hate is contagious to the rest of the players on the team. Push them not to quit maybe some parents are making it to easy to quit in their lives. It should not be easy to quit.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'll see how this works. The league schedule starts in 2 weeks, and we'll soon find out!

 

Not having seen them play myself, I have a real problem judging their performance based on beginning-of-the-season tournament play. It doesn't surprise me at all that 10-year-olds fade fast--both mentally and physically--after the first match of a weekend tournament. In August.

 

I agree with you; however the head coach - who was familiar with the team last year - said this isn't a one-time problem. It happened often last year.