We’ve all seen it or heard about it – stories of top football coaches shouting, throwing things all in the name of getting the best out of their players. From Sir Alex Ferguson’s legendary temper in the changing rooms, to Graham Taylors’ touchline fury broadcast in the 1994 BBC documentary ‘An Impossible Job’, you could […]
Research within sport psychology highlights and emphasises the potentially stressful nature of sports participation (e.g., Fletcher, Hanton & Mellalieu, 2006; Fletcher, Hanton Mellalieu & Neil, 2012; Giacobbi, Foore, & Weinberg, 2004). Stress can significantly influence both an athletes’ well-being (DiBartolo & Shaffer, 2002; Tabei, Fletcher, & Goodger, 2012), competitive performance (Humphrey, Yow, & Bowden, 2000) […]
1. Background In this article three developmental pathways to expertise in the field of sport were critically analysed. Activity patterns were explored and compared, in an attempt to find trends in footballers that reached top-level performance as an adult. 2. Findings There are three current pathways to expertise that exist within sport (for a review, […]
The purpose of this article is to promote the use of mental toughness within football. Mental toughness is an important concept that coaches and players should engage during training and matches. Enhanced mental toughness increases the chance of consistent success. There are identifiable characteristics that relate to mental toughness within football (see table below). Mental […]
In may 2013, Alex Fergunsons`26 years, successful leadership of Manchester United came to an end. During his career as manager, the club won the Premier League 13 times and Champions league both in 1999 and 2008. Stories about “hairdryer-treatment”, fatherly leadership and the fact that he rebuilt winning teams again and again, makes him not […]
Confidence is such a key component of successful performance in sport and a player’s loss of confidence can brutally be laid bare in the professional arena. Footballer Ashley Young appears to be having a crisis of confidence, not helped by his apparent penchant for diving. The reputation of Manchester United’s winger has fallen a great […]
Retirement – the reality! For many years, sport psychologists have referred to retirement from sport as a ‘transition’. However, Nesti and Littlewood (2010) argue that the term ‘transition’ suggests that such an event is smooth and easy to negotiate. Although there will be cases where this is in fact true, in reality, the experience of […]
In August of last year I moved to the USA to play soccer for a small university in Tennessee. What we achieved as a team was more than any of us could have imagined, or even dreamt about whilst going through a brutal pre-season at the beginning of August. We under-achieved in our conference, lost […]
What is perfectionism? Perfectionism has been identified as an innate characteristic of personality (Stoeber et al. 2007), in a sporting context it is characterised by the setting of exceptionally high standards, a complete striving for flawlessness and the overly critical evaluation of one’s performance (Frost et al. 1990; Flett & Hewitt 2005). Perfectionism is widely […]
We’ve all seen or heard of elite sports people performing ritual movements before competitions, from a 100m runner blessing themselves before a race, to a footballer with his lucky pants or the Golfer with his favourite putter. From the outside looking in it may seem odd and strange; however in all sports, superstitions and rituals […]