Psychological Aspects of Soccer
I recently read an interview with Anson Dorrance, famous University of North Carolina women’s soccer coach. In his interview, he talked about the importance of the psychological aspect of soccer – more specifically, core values that help create a positive psychology.
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Don’t take it personally
My team had a game recently and, because of my injury, I was sitting on the bench with our coach and other team-mates. When you remove yourself from the game, you take on a different perspective and, therefore, see the game differently. Your experience of the game is entirely different. The very first thing I realized is just how many bad decisions my team-mates were making. It’s not to say there weren’t good decision, and many of them, but the bad decisions really stuck out.
Goal celebrations…overrated
Flamboyant goal celebrations piss me off. They’re classless, ignorant and show no respect. Celebrating a goal to show off is just dumb.
The danger of being a passive soccer player
In all my years as a soccer player, I have come across every type of player: skilled players; weak players; hard-working players; angry players; and the list goes on. I respect every style of play I come into contact with, except one: passive players. The reason I respect everyone’s style of play – even though I might not agree with it – is because not one of us is the same. We all have different builds, different skills and different beliefs in life. Passive players, however, do not deserve respect because they discredit themselves and the game.
There’s 10 minutes to go and you’re down 1-0…
You’re down 1-0 with approximately 10 minutes to play. What do you do? As a coach, and a player as well, you have to understand a few things about how the game can be won.
Play until you hear the whistle
One of the most frustrating things to see is when players stop playing the game. A player thinks they’ve been fouled so they stop and expect a foul to be called, or defenders think the play is offside so they stop, raise their hand and look at the linesman. This is naive soccer. Never stop playing until you hear a whistle. Read more
Coaches: How to get to complete control of your team
Just like players need to continuously improve, so do coaches. As a coach, why not learn the strategies from the best of the best? And what better person is there to study than Sir Alex Ferguson? One of the areas Ferguson has been a master of is making his players fear him. However, his players never fear him to the point that they are afraid to play their game but his presence alone and the way he runs the team allows him to the get the very best out of each player. Read more