Psychology in Football: Working with Elite and Professional Players

by Nesti; Mark

• ISBN13: 9780415549998
• ISBN10: 041554999X
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2010-07-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Psychology in Football is a detailed guide to delivering sport psychology in an elite team sport environment, from practical drills on the training field to shaping organisational behaviour at club level. The book is illustrated throughout with real-world case studies, drawing on research into sixteen professional clubs across five European countries, and concludes by suggesting how other elite team sports can learn from the experiences of professional football.

Author Biography

Mark Nesti is Reader in Sport Psychology at Liverpool John Moores university. He has worked as a consultant sport psychologist with four English Premier League football clubs, and is currently working with players and staff at three Premiership clubs.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Knowing professional football	p. 9
Understanding the culture	p. 9
Setting the scene	p. 11
Previous encounters with sport psychologists	p. 12
Evidence of worth	p. 14
Are you worth it?	p. 15
Being one of the guys!	p. 16
We are the sport psychologists!	p. 17
Psychobabble	p. 18
Physician, heal thyself!	p. 20
Time famine	p. 21
Privacy	p. 21
Important but unwelcome	p. 23
Conclusions	p. 24
One-to-one sport psychology counselling	p. 27
Mental skills training	p. 30
Philosophical grounding	p. 31
Putting it into practice	p. 33
Performance or personal agenda?	p. 39
Living encounters	p. 43
Supporting the coaching team and developing the staff	p. 51
The sport psychologist as an organizational psychologist/human resource manager	p. 51
Encouraging 'buy in' from coaches and staff	p. 56
Job descriptions	p. 57
CPD	p. 60
Codes of conduct	p. 62
Away day rationale	p. 65
Away day activities	p. 66
Away day culture change	p. 70
Supporting the manager	p. 73
Developing the manager	p. 74
Professional and personal goals and ambitions	p. 81
Appraisal mechanisms	p. 86
Humility	p. 87
Identity	p. 89
Leadership	p. 91
Dealing with stress and anxiety	p. 98
Creating and managing the environment	p. 101
Developing human spirit	p. 103
Team building	p. 106
Providing a club chaplain	p. 108
Human spirit and religious spirituality	p. 115
When the banter stops	p. 120
The liaison officer	p. 123
Introduction	p. 123
Supporting the sport psychologist	p. 123
Doing the job	p. 126
Caring or performance focused	p. 128
Education and welfare officers	p. 135
Trust, values, confidentiality and identity	p. 137
Trust	p. 137
Trusting yourself	p. 138
Identity and trust	p. 142
Creating identity	p. 143
Inculcating the values of excellence	p. 146
Threat to values	p. 148
The importance of living your values	p. 151
Equality and values	p. 152
Meeting the person not the player!	p. 154
Values and identity	p. 159
Football lessons	p. 165
Implications for other professional team sports	p. 165
Making friends: the players	p. 167
Making friends: the staff	p. 170
Youthful energy	p. 172
The public	p. 174
X factor specialists	p. 175
Being a boffin	p. 176
Getting paid	p. 181
The big ten	p. 182
References	p. 191
Index	p. 199
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