A look at some psychological experiments which have found to improve players performance before and during matches.
After a rousing win or a stunning comeback some people always look to the events before and at half time to answers. How much did the team talk make a difference.
Tiffanye Vargas has completed a number of studies into how the content of speeches can raise the level of belief in a player to achieve success in their performance. One study published in the journal of Applied Social Psychology gave a number of male and female players one of three recordings to listen to before a fictional championship game.
1. Standard information about the players kit and the pitch 2. Strategic information on weaknesses of the opposition 3. An emotional speech telling the players to play with passion and without fear and that the opposition manager thought they weren’t good enough.
The group with the emotional speech reported greater feelings on self-belief that they would be successful. In order studies by Vargas she found that an emotional speech works best for when a team was the underdog whereas strategic information was far more useful to the players when the two teams were of a similar quality.
So the next time you’re in a changing room before a big match channel your inner Mike Bassett.
Rocky is such a classic film that an ‘Eye of the Tiger’ improvement montage has filtered down into most sport films in existence.
Hall and Erickson carried out an experiment on 60 metre speed races. A test group listened to the Rocky theme tune pre-race whereas the control group had no music. The Rocky group led to faster times than the control due to preparedness of the body to the task at hand by increasing heart rate and muscle tension and decreasing anxiety.
Being pumped up is a great way to get ready for a short burst of energy, you only have to watch the NFL to see the attacking team constantly talking each other up whilst they’re on the sidelines to get themselves pumped for the next attacking play.
Don’t worry though, future tests also suggested that other preferred music also has the same effect so you don’t have to add Eye of the Tiger to your Spotify playlist just yet. Could something equally rousing and get it into your pre-game routine.
Norman Triplett in the 19th century completed a number of tests on cyclists when he observed that they had quicker times when racing in a group versus racing alone. Sounds obvious, right. Most people love a competition.
To extend to that though when he tested his theory in a number of different tasks he found that for easy tasks a high level of competition and high arousal led to a better performance but actually for difficult tasks low arousal was required to concentrate and therefore the increased competition actually made people perform worse.
They also found that competition levels increased from when you are competing with a complete stranger versus when you are competing against a known friend or rival.
What does that mean for you? Well the next time you’re at training or you want to push yourself harder in a run. Make it a competition! At maestroFC.com we have a number of challenges where you can compete to see who gets the faster times or the best scores. See our drills here.
Contagion is a psychological process which describes the likelihood of someone copying another person or groups actions or emotions when being exposed to them. A good example is social contagion when football fans are singing a song or acting in a certain way, it is more likely individuals will adopt the same action.
But how can this be used for good in a football context. Well, every football player looks up to professional footballers and so you can increase a player’s confidence by linking them with that player. Whether it is highlighting traits that they are similar in or if you have different age group teams consider the older teams handing down equipment to the younger players. This will link them to better players and increase their confidence.
It’s a common occurrence in sport that you attempt a skill for the first time in a match for example a shot but you fail. You’re getting you eye in. And the next time a similar scenario comes up you attempt the shot and you score.
It’s because you know what you are supposed to do in that moment. You’ve already thought it through before the split second reaction is required for you to react.
That’s why you can get an edge in the game by visualizing different scenarios before a game. Think about 3 or 4 common scenarios which might occur for your position and visualize what a successful play looks and feels like. For a striker it might be receiving the ball at the edge of the box. Visualize cutting in a striking at goal or pulling in a step over to beat the player before finishing one on one.
Football is such a varied game that it isn’t filled with too many closed skills (repetitive skills where the circumstances are the same). Good example of this are kickers in American Football and Rugby, Free Throw shots in Basketball or every single dart shot.
But this can apply to dead ball situations and in particular penalty kicks. For such a simple task there is a high level of unsuccessful attempts due to players allowing the psychological pressure to get to them.
England national team are a perfect example but in July 2018 they finally won a penalty shoot-out when it mattered.
How? By perfecting their pre-routine rituals. They took the goal keeper out of the mind games by only concentrating on where they were putting the ball, Jordan Pickford handed the ball to every penalty taker so that they didn’t have to worry about getting the ball whilst being nervous, the penalty takers already knew who was going to take the kicks and the biggest change? When the referee blew the whistle, they paused and composed themselves. England previously had the quickest reaction time of any nation – 0.28 seconds. Which is an obvious indication of stress and wanting the situation over.
And, it was fitting that the player who eventually missed to send England through, Carlos Bacca, had the quickest reaction time – and Pickford was waiting.
take part in our challenges
Maestro Football Challenges is a web app which enables coaches and individuals to take part in drills and challenges and record their scores and compare with players across the world. Take a look at our most recent challenges below or view drills here.
Chip the ball into the skills net from a short distance to show your accuracy skills.
Keep up a ball for 10 yards and then place it in the net. 3 balls to complete and the best score / fastest time wins.
Record your maximum speed and compare with other players across the world.
Closest to the pin wins in this passing accuracy challenge.
Test your dribbling and speed and also your close control in this dribbling drill.