Today’s modern football requires extremely fast thinking on the field. If a player makes a mistake while playing and his team concedes a goal because of his mistake, he must quickly get over the given situation, so everyone can concentrate on the remaining part of the match. Besides, on the gray weekdays, you have to train with devotion to develop day by day. Writing by Levente Szántai, psychologist and former football player, which was published on the mindsetpszichologia.hu website., mely megjelent a mindsetpszichologia.hu honlapon.
This type of approach is examined in the theory of Dweck and Legett (1988), which is referred as “mindset” in the English literature. The fix mindset suggests that human characteristics are immutable, but this urges you to make constant self-justification. So, if one has only a certain degree of intelligence or a particular personality, one is compelled to prove that all of this is enough to succeed. In contrast the essence of the growth mindset is that,
all people are able to develop their basic qualities with due effort and practice.
Dweck extended his approach to attitudes to athletes in his book of Change of Attitudes (2015). According to this, fixed minded athletes do not do everything for their own development because excessive effort would doubt their talent. As a result, faith in innate talent can result in satisfaction. In addition, for them failure is extremely debilitating, so they dread the thought of it. In contrast, athletes with development approach view practice as a game and work hard to become better. For them, failure is also motivating, because it brings mistakes to the surface, and they can learn and improve by correcting them.
According to a football player with fixed approach, his skills cannot be improved or only to a small extent. However, because of this, he is constantly forced to explain his performance, avoiding responsibility. Either the referee led the match poorly, or the quality of the pitch was inadequate, or the opponent played too roughly. On the other hand, the developmental approach focuses on self-improvement, motivation, and responsibility. A footballer with a developmental approach often stays out to practice after training because wants to be a better footballer day by day. Instead of criticizing external circumstances, always strives to the best of his ability,
he is aware he is responsible for his own performance.
As a former professional footballer, throughout my career I have met several young talents, who were much talented than their peers. However, according to my observation, if this was not coupled with enough endurance and practice, these kids mostly gave up on competitive sports. They could not accept that their peers who invested more energy in trainings were able to compensate their ability deficiencies and therefore developed at a faster space. So even as an active athlete came up the idea to examine the sport-specific approach of Hungarian youth footballers.
The research
My research involved 7 first-class and 13 second-class academies, for a total of 346 footballers (average age: 17.51 years). As no Hungarian language measurement tool was available to examine the attitudes of athletes, I created the Football-specific mindset questionnaire, which contains 11 propositions. An example of developmental approach is the proposition of “We are able to change the bad qualities that hinder our careers, it is all matter of willpower”, while an example of fixed approach is the proposition of “It is decided early on what skills we have, and we can hardly change on this during our careers”. The questionnaire created by me proved to be reliable in measuring the attitudes of footballers. Labdarúgóspecifikus mindset kérdőívet, mely 11 tételt tartalmaz. A fejlődési szemléletmódra példa a „A karrierünket hátráltató rossz tulajdonságainkon képesek vagyunk változtatni, mindez akaraterő kérdése” tétel, míg a rögzült szemléletmódra: „Korán eldől, hogy milyen képességekkel rendelkezünk, ezen változtatni pályafutásunk során alig lehet”. Az általam létrehozott kérdőív megbízhatónak bizonyult labdarúgók szemléletmódjának mérésére.
Based on the results obtained it seemed that second-class youth players tend to have a football-specific developmental approach. One possible reason of it is that second-class football players presumably try to compensate their ability deficiencies with persistent and hard training. In addition, the results show that
first-class football players have a higher proportion of fixed attitudes
than their second-class peers. This could be a problem for a young player because he will primarily rely on his talent and think that it is enough to “take the boots out to the field” as his abilities take precedence over effort. In this way, could a talented young player gray into the comfort zone of the home level over time, although his abilities predestine him more. And after finishing a football career, the classic phrase is often uttered by fixed- minded athletes: “there was more in me, but…” and they lined up the external circumstances that held them back, avoiding their own responsibilities.
Interpretation
Of course, these results do not mean that football players from elite academies do not invest enough energy in the trainings. Rather, a kind of change of attitude should be emphasized in their case, which aim is to highlight that they have even more in them both on an individual and team level. This may result in the future that, they will be able to compete with foreign elite academies and youth national teams.
A player who believes that athletic qualities could be improved only to a small extent and therefore in his opinion less work in the trainings is enough to succeed is likely to avoid situations where he may fall. This is also problematic, because in this case the coaches in vain try to motivate the player for better performance as the player presumably refrain from trying new techniques and methods due to fear of failure. A player who is willing to make an effort to develop his skills will probably think from a possible failure experience that its effects will lead to an important experience, making him even more motivated. Besides, accepts his coach’s constructive criticisms and boldly tries new kinds of solutions as he sees failure as just a next step on his path to develop.
The athletes in the sample therefore are aware of that the key to becoming a professional footballer is the persistent and hard training and they also feel that it is their responsibility to realize that. However, experience shows that this does not appear on a practical level, in terms of effectiveness. Arises the question, if the players are aware of the importance of the developmental approach, why does not all this appear in the practice of training the youth of Hungarian football.
What’ next?
Thinking attitudes also play an important role in achieving a positive outcome of adolescence. It does not matter, if a player at this stage of development, which is also sensitive to the sport sees himself as a finished creation or works day by day to get better and does the hard work to reach that. On the road to a professional football career a key factor may be the mindset that
talent is not enough, and continuous improvement is needed for the expected success.
However, the way of thinking is not enough in itself, the reference persons, in this case the coaches, play a key role in putting the developmental approach into practice. A coach with a developmental approach is constantly educating his players to find pleasure in challenges and to remain resilient despite periodic failures. In addition, draws the attention of his players again and again to the fact that success can be achieved through persistent efforts. The critiques formulated by him are for learning purposes, not aimed at the athlete’s personality but at improving his performance. In the end, the coach takes a mistake for granted, does not scold his player because of it, but rather encourages him to learn from it. In this way, greater success can be achieved at both individual and team level in the long run.
The football-specific mindset questionnaire developed by me can help the work of sports psychologists by making it measurable where the athlete is in terms of attitudes. In the light of the results, the direction and the extent of the development can be established. By developing the players’ developmental approach, a qualitative change can be achieved on the football field in the terms of effectiveness, for which the Hungarian football society has been waiting for decades and as the successful European Championship participation in 2016 has highlighted, the entire Hungarian nation.
Source: https://mindsetpszichologia.hu/mi-a-mindset-szerepe-a-sportban-hazai-labdarugok-szemleletmodjanak-vizsgalata
