What Makes a Professional Football Player?

It might sound like a silly question, but there’s more to becoming a professional football player than simply being physically fit and having the skills on the pitch. In fact, Fulham FC scout, Roger Skyrme, says he rarely even looks at the ball when he’s looking for young talent at matches. He explains, “A player must have the right attitude”. But what exactly is the right attitude?

When it comes to competitive sport, what goes on inside your head is crucial to your physical performance. Sports coaches are increasingly emphasising the importance of mental training to athletes in order to improve key components like engagement, focus, motivation and confidence. It’s not unheard of for players to perform far better on match day than they did during training and equally some of the most technically skilled football players don’t realise their potential outside of the training ground.

One of the biggest obstacles for athletes is self-belief. If you’re not mentally tough enough, you can easily find yourself intimidated by opponents, which can bring on negative emotions like anxiety. Sports psychologists recommend self-talks and imagery techniques to overcome this. It might sound simple, but when you tell yourself something enough, you begin to believe it. In a similar way, imagining yourself realising your performance goals can help to motivate and boost confidence. When one player is feeling motivated and confident, the positivity spreads throughout the team and collectively can make the difference between a good or bad performance on match day.

In an interview with the LA Times, La Galaxy forward Landon Donovan explained that he uses meditation in order to improve his performance, “I play best when I’m happy inside. And that comes from me working on myself. When I take care of myself emotionally and physically, I perform better.” He believes that mental training“is the last great possibility in sports. If we can mentally and emotionally, as athletes, get to a better place, the sky’s the limit.” Research certainly backs up Donovan’s advice, with a recent study revealing that in competition, the ability to control our emotions and remain focused are crucial to becoming a professional.

One of the best, and easiest ways, footballers can integrate mental techniques into their schedule is during training but like Donovan, there is always more you can do as an individual away from the pitch. Besides Meditation, athletes use outlets like yoga and even acupuncture to distress and improve emotional wellbeing. Ultimately, the techniques come down to the individual but one things for sure, in the words of Roger Skyrme, “To succeed, you’ve got to have something special in your make-up that will help you rise above the rest”.