Psychological preparation and motivation for a Football Team

An element that is fundamental towards attaining sport mastery yet often overlooked in terms of its trainability is psychological preparation. The preparation of psychological strength is no less trainable in an organized method then the preparation of the physical condition.

Performance in sports is the result and expression of total personality of sportsman. Tactics, Technique, Physical Fitness alone are not enough for the outstanding performance. Besides, the sportsman should possess certain cognitive process, certain personality traits and all and above positive attitude believes towards training and competitions. Top performance in football is a highly complex process and is a product of several internal and external factors encompassing all the aspects of human personality. "Sports performance is the unity of execution and result of a sports action or a complex sequence of actions measured or evaluated according to socially determined and agreed norms"(Theiss and Schnabel, 1987).

Psychological preparation is one of the most important parts of the total preparation of the Football players. Psychological preparation on the basis of psychological characteristics of the sport, the competition conditions and the personality structure of the sportsmen is planned and carried out with the main aim of "enabling the sportsman to be in an optimum psychic state at the time of completion there by achieving the maximum possible performance". For outstanding performance, footballer should be taught to use psycho-regulative procedures i.e. utogenous training for regulating their own psychic state before and during the competition.

Coaches and players have to be serious about reaching athletic or performance dreams. Many athletes have tremendous God-given gifts, but they don't focus on the development of those gifts. It's true in sports and it's true everywhere in life. Hard work is making the difference. It's important to remember that athletes can motivate one another. We usually split the players into drill groups and score them as a team rather than as individuals. These training sessions help build team morale and make the players feel they have invested in one another. Each player has a responsibility to the team. Never allow individuals to take over the effort of the whole team. If you leave the mental side of performance to chance, then the players are more vulnerable to performance problems, including excessive nervousness, psych-outs, choking, and slumps. To be more consistent, successful players have to learn the power of sports psychology. This will help players to think like a winner and develop mental toughness.

As a coach, a working knowledge of sports psychology techniques will help you to become more effective and therefore much more successful with your athletes. Knowing how to get the most out of your players at "crunch time" and how to avoid the mental traps that far too many coaches fall into provides you the competitive advantage. It is very important to explain to your players what distractive behavior is and how that will negatively affects their experience. Footballers should understand their behavioral responsibility to the team. They should also know and respect that their coaches are in control. It is then the coach's responsibility to the team to exact control. Success is realized the moment an athlete gains a winning attitude, is motivated to set a worthwhile goal, and begins to move toward that goal. A winning attitude is the best motivator. If athletes believe they can achieve their goals, they'll try harder and increase their likelihood of success. Attitude controls motivation; motivation controls performance; performance controls success.

Motivation and psychological preparation is very important moment in professional sport. Every coach needs to have time to prepare himself in that direction as well. The most difficult part is when we play games with weak teams but in the same time, those matches are the best opportunities for developing the motivation and concentration of the players. So, psychological preparation, psychological training or conditioning should never be overlooked when preparing a Football Team.