The value of additional support

In this issue of Full View Magazine, I spoke with Huddersfield Town player William Boyle. I have been working with Will for the last three seasons since he was a Cheltenham Town player in League Two. Throughout that time, Will achieved promotion to League One with Cheltenham Town and has recently moved to a club in the Championship. It is a journey that many players are likely to take in their careers. A significant number of players are required to gain playing experience in either League Two or League One, either on loan or a permanent basis, before reaching the Championship or Premier League. Therefore, the present article aims to present to the readers some of the challenges that players may face along the way and different ways of dealing with them. Particular attention is given to the potential benefits of private consultancy and how working with someone like myself can help players take their game to the next level.

Significance of psychological factors

It is widely accepted that psychological factors underpin players' ability to translate potential into top-class performance. Indeed, psychological factors are constantly identified as the key determinants of those who emerged as talented and maintained excellence. Considerable research findings demonstrate that successful players have high levels of commitment and an inner desire to succeed. Indeed, players who make a successful transition from academy to professional football possess a high level of self-direction from an early age, demonstrating extraordinary levels of commitment towards the pursuit of excellence. These players constantly set targets and goals that they want to achieve in training sessions and competitive matches. Also, they demonstrate high levels of selfmotivation, aggression, and fighting spirit to always give their all. Finally, to progress through the academy system and establish themselves in the first team environment players are required to develop a willingness to move out of their comfort zone to drive their performance levels.

It can be assumed that upon successful transition into the first team setup, players possess all the necessary psychological capabilities to strive in the professional environment. However, when discussing the psychological factors within professional football, the media has given significant attention to the fear of failure. While striving for excellence and pushing the boundaries lies at the heart of professional football, an increasing number of players speak about avoidance motivation. As such, when entering the first team environment players quickly learn about the consequences of mistakes. For instance, by giving the ball away and costing the team a goal a player may quickly lose their place in the squad and struggle for playing time. Therefore, players may quickly learn to perceive failure as threatening and experience fear when evaluating match situations. This, in turn, may lead to the development of certain threatening beliefs about the consequences of failure (e.g., uncertain future). The strength of players’ beliefs that some adverse consequences will occur after failure, often indicates the level of fear that they may experience.

Fear of failure may often overshadow the psychological characteristics discussed earlier in the present article. Indeed, while striving for excellence, players may fear to open up to a coach and speak about the aspects of their game that they would like to develop. More specifically, due to their threatening beliefs, players may be afraid to show any signs of weakness, being afraid that such exposure may have negative consequences on their position within the team. Consequently, players may shy away from moving out of their comfort zone and “play it safe” to ensure that they will not risk things that they have worked so hard for all their lives (e.g., professional status).

A possible consequence of a fear of failure is that players may modify their motivation and achievement goals to avoid the negative outcomes and reduce this fear. Therefore, players' motivation may become more avoidance related - striving to avoid doing worse than one has done previously and/or striving to avoid doing worse than others. Also, fear of failure can influence players’ time perspective (i.e., one’s ability to focus their thinking on their past, present, or future). More specifically, rather than focusing on future time, perspective players may predominately direct their attention towards past-positive time perspectives (e.g., becoming satisfied with already achieved results and levels of performance). Such a time perspective may be underpinned by players' desire to reduce the sense of fear and enhance their levels of self-efficacy by focusing on past performance accomplishments.

When reflecting on the impact of fear of failure on players' sense-making, William Boyle suggested:

“It stops you from taking responsibility and directs your focus towards not wanting to make mistakes. Because of the fear of failure, you would not put yourself in certain positions and you will try to avoid certain situations on the pitch. So basically, you are doing everything to make sure that you are not getting exposed to potential perceived mistakes.”

According to William Boyle, such a sense-making may lead players to “revert to certain things, deciding on how to act based on a fear of making mistakes and a fear of being not good enough.”

It is not impossible but it is not easy

This is not to suggest that all of the players share these experiences. Also, some environments and coaches may provide high levels of support for the players to take the pressure off them and give them licence to stretch themselves. However, this is not something that is achieved easily. Some of the main challenges may include a range of things that coaches are required to deal with. Indeed, when outlining their decision to utilise the support of Full View Psychology William Boyle suggested:

“I do not think that coaches have the time to go into the level of detail that you do with an individual player, breaking down the game and then how a player thinks about different things within the game. You are impartial and you are not picking the team. So, it is much easier to open up and be honest about the mistakes that I have made in the game. I think that I can lay everything on the table and you do not need to hold anything back. For example, someone might not be quick enough and they might see it as a weakness. They are naturally going to try to hide that and sort of counter it in different ways. Also, they might not open up about this to someone at the club because they might be feeling like they are being judged constantly. So, they might be afraid that it is going to affect their position in the team. Because of that, it is much easier to speak to someone who is completely impartial and someone that does not pick the team.”

Dealing with the demands of professional football

Therefore, while players entering the professional level may be faced with a lack of security that can stem from short-term contracts, frequent changes of the manager, and competition for places, private consultancy may help them to deal with such demands better. Also, by working with someone outside of their club setting, players can openly speak about their vulnerabilities and find different ways to improve. According to William Boyle, some of the benefits of working with a private consultancy such as Full View Psychology include:

“This is a psychologically safe space for me as a player. It allows me to share some of the things in terms of what I am thinking on the pitch, which then allows me to enhance my emotional self-control and self-awareness off the back of that. Another big thing for me is enhancing my ability to think within the game. I think that you need to have the psychological foundations to think within the game clearly and understand things tactically and then apply that in the game setting. You definitely helped me achieve that. Thinking about space and time and the cognitive skills that I would class them as - how quickly can you think and how quickly can you see things? Thinking about what should you be looking for on the pitch, where should you be scanning and what are you scanning for. This level of detail is something that I have not been coached on before, for example, considering where and what should I be scanning for during a game. You definitely helped me understand why I should be doing things like that and how to do them as well.”

“So, that is how I see our journey and how it is going. The psychological safety helped with all of these aspects in terms of setting goals, building self-belief, and positive self-talk. So, looking at the techniques that work for me on the pitch allowed me to think more clearly in the game and under pressure.”

Benefits of private consultancy

Discussing the benefits of working with Full View Psychology, therefore, William Boyle concluded:

“We started working together because I wanted to give more and I knew that there was a deeper level of improvement and things that I could add to my game, that was something that I thought - I knew how much it would improve me.”

“It has helped me enjoy the game a lot more because rather than playing with fear it allows me to see everything as a challenge and chance to improve. Seeing my own game as a project almost and constantly trying to improve rather than trying to measure myself against other players, and other players' pathways. Instead, it allowed me to focus solely on myself and gave me the confidence to do that and not worry about other people.”

“It has been the biggest influence on my career out of all the coaches that I have had. It is almost like a big challenge and adventure and not many people I have come across within professional football perceive the game that way, in my opinion, this is because of the pressure that comes with being a professional player”.

Overall, while possessing a range of vital psychological characteristics players may find it challenging to deal with the demands of professional football. These demands, in turn, may lead to fear of failure that can prevent players from playing to their full potential and enhance their performance levels. Due to the nature of the professional sport, players may find it hard to overcome such challenges while working with staff embedded within their settings. Therefore, players may benefit from working with someone impartial and outside of the club environment.