Foundation Certificate in Soccer Psychology & Mental Skills Training

This Foundation Certificate in Soccer Psychology & Mental Skills course has been developed with some of the most respected psychologists and mental skills practitioners and academics working across some of the world’s leading soccer clubs. This course will aid your understanding of where the psychological and mental skills approach discipline can assist with those marginal gains clubs and individuals pursue

Course Outline

Lecture 1: An Introduction to Sport Psychology & Its Role Within Soccer Delivered by Dr Alena Grushko

In this lecture you’ll increase your knowledge about the general sports psychology world. How performance enhancement processes are applied in sports psychology. In the context of soccer, you’ll discover mental skills training and social skills training, perceptual-cognitive training and some further instrumental methods.

Lecture 2: Energy Management in the Game - Soccer Anxiety, Stress & Arousal Delivered by Ricardo Pires

With the highs and lows experienced during the season and indeed each game, energy management is key. In this lecture, you’ll discover the concepts of arousal, anxiety, and stress. Each of these concepts differ from each other and it’s important that you can identify them. You’ll learn what are the potential sources of stress and anxiety and the four stages of the stress process. Performance in your players requires a level of arousal and anxiety… you’ll learn some practical ways of applying these factors in your sessions.

Lecture 3: Improving Focus, Attention and Concentration in a Soccer Environment Delivered by Omer Ates

Lapses of concentration lead to mistakes on the field, some end up as game changers. In this lecture Omer explains what the various types of attentional focus are, what can be some of the psychological distractors which effect players. But crucially, you’ll discover techniques to improve your players concentration thus minimising and even avoiding those costly lapses.

Lecture 4: Player Motivation: The Use of Goal Setting in Soccer Delivered by Sarah Murray

An extremely practical lecture, Sarah will guide you through the three stages of player motivation, exploring what goal setting is, why does goal setting work and it’s impact at an individual level and how you can practically implement SMART goal setting in your team environment. Specifically in this lecture, you’ll learn about multiple goal setting strategies, how to structure goals with context, how to measure and review goals and crucially how you can support your players through this process.

Lecture 5: Team Cohesion & Key Lines of Communication within Soccer Delivered by Ricardo Pires

In the lecture, you will examine what is cohesion and how you identify the different dimensions of cohesion. Team cohesion is multi-faceted, so in this lecture we’ll explore together a model of cohesion and also the correlational factors and outcomes. Watch a successful team in full flight and you can see these factors and outcomes in real life, however, in this lecture, you’ll understand the dynamics between cohesion and performance and how you can develop cohesion in your squad. One key skill in developing this is excellent communication skills which is another topic within this lecture.

Lecture 6: Developing Self Confidence in Soccer, Training & Match Interventions Delivered by Sion Rowlands

Self-belief is key to player and team success, but it’s not just something that is turned on and off in the competitive environment. In this lecture, Sion explores with you what is self-confidence and it’s an important factor in your players performances. You can have a massive impact both positively and negatively on a player’s self-confidence, so it’s vital that you know what an intervention is and how to use them to get the most out of your players.

Lecture 7: Imagery as a Mental Skills Intervention Delivered by Omer Ates

In an earlier lecture Omer looked at Focus, Attention and Concentration, in this lecture you’ll explore the specific skill of using imagery. You may have heard the saying by Napoleon Hill “Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve.” To fully execute this, you need to understand how imagery works, what factors can affect its effectiveness and why imagery has can have a positive or negative impact on performance. Practically at the end of this lecture you’ll be able to create an imagery script with your players and squad.

Lecture 8: Coach & Player Self Reflection Delivered by Thomas Pratl

Soccer management can be an extremely rewarding and brutal environment. Having the ability to let go of mistakes and poor decisions as a coach while also reflecting on what you could change is important. Likewise, maintaining confidence in the face of adversity, is a vital component of a coach and managers make up. You are the leader of a wider group and how you cope and manage these various situations impacts on all around you. In this lecture, you’ll discover a better understanding of self-reflection, what strategies you can implement and how they can affect your coaching behaviour.

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