Mental skills, confidence and goal setting for youth soccer players








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:

  1. Mental Skills
  2. Building
    Confidence
  3. Goal Setting
    Principles
  4. Setting Match
    Goals

You can read a short extract from Mental Skills below.

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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
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All written by a UEFA coach specifically for youth soccer coaches like you and
me.

Every drill and game is fully illustrated and downloadable.

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Membership of Premium could be best investment you ever made as a coach.

Check it out now – go to: www.premiumsoccercoaching.com for
all the details.

best wishes,

 

Steve, footy4kids.




Mental Skills – by Bill Blyth

"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!!

Join Premium today!