We can all agree that Manchester United are not as good as Manchester City but should they have looked beaten before kick-off. Psychology is massive and should be treated as such, says JohnnyTheNic
“It’s a lack of belief. When you don’t believe on the pitch then you can’t win games: that is unacceptable.”
If such claims are true, it means the psychology of a footballer matters a great deal more than anything else. Forget all the training and the tactics, if your head’s not right, you might as well give up from the start. And if that’s the case, psychology should surely have priority in training. It’s amazing how commentators and pundits alike are such great experts on the science of body language. “His body language is not good” is the cliche and it might be a bit of an overreach to say you can tell by the shape of someone’s body, or how they stand or run, whether they’re up for it today, even so, we all think we can tell when a player is uncommitted or unconfident, don’t we?
Of course this is crude, but it does at least acknowledge the need to understand where someone’s head is at in order to get the best out of them, even if the issues are inevitably more deep and complex and can’t be sorted out with a session at the casino or in the pub. If they spend three hours a day training, there is surely a good case for having a few hours per week working on the mental side of the game.
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