Focused for Soccer

By Bill Beswick

Book Overview

Successful soccer players understand the game, have the skills to execute the techniques and tactics, and are conditioned to meet the physical demands of the sport. A fourth and equally important factor in soccer success is mental toughness. Being a champion requires concentration, discipline, motivation, and a positive attitude. Now players can learn to meet and overcome the mental challenges of intense competition with Focused for Soccer . This book alone delivers such in-depth, easy-to-follow guidelines for maximizing individual performance on the soccer field. Focused for Soccer will help you sharpen mental skills and unleash your full potential. Better than general sport psychology text, Focused for Soccer is filled with practical tips and step-by-step techniques that transfer directly to the game. Part of Human Kinetics' popular Focused for Sports series, this book makes the case that physical skills and conditioning must be combined with psychological skills to be a champion. European coach and sport psychologist Bill Beswick is the world's leading authority on the mental aspects of soccer performance. Beswick's insights and anecdotes enrich the expert instruction throughout the book. He explains how he has applied the training techniques successfully in his many years as a coach and consultant. Beswick begins by helping you create an honest player assessment and a plan of action. He then guides you through every key factor of the mental game that will improve performance, including positive outlook, intensity of actions, imagination, winning attitudes, healthy competitiveness, and true teamwork. In many sections, the author shows techniques used by professional athletes and sport psychologists to boost performance to a higher level. Encouraging athletes to play "first with the head, then with the heart," Focused for Soccer is a players' and coaches' guide to all of the psychological tools necessary to become a soccer champion. It is an invaluable tool for improving the foundation of your game and an outstanding guidebook for any physical athletic training program.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0736030026
• ISBN13: 9780736030021
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

PSYCH!!!

Great Book! Saw Beswick at the SMU coaching clinic and he was absolute spot on in his presentation on the role of the coach and the development of the player in the modern game of soccer.

Impressed

As a thirteen year veteran of coaching high school and club soccer, it is hard for me not to view any book with a bit of skepticism. So upon purchasing this book I was intrigued to see what Beswick had to say and not positive he could teach me anything new. I was dead wrong, he is fantastic and much of what he writes about can be transferred to sports other than soccer. I was especially impressed with his ideas and examples of assessment tools for coaches and for player self-reflection. I have already begun to create my own versions of them in order to use them with my side this fall. A highly recommended read for players and coaches alike.

A must-read for serious soccer coaches

Bill Beswick, one of the world's premier sports psychologists (currently employed by England and Manchester United) and an accomplished coach in his own right, has written a book that is destined to take a place on the priority reading list of all aspiring soccer coaches. In it, he describes the mental, emotional, psychological, and lifestyle aspects of a complete player. The book is full of tables, checklists, and charts for self and team assessment, and the book has been beautifully tailored so as to be applicable for both coaches and players. The main strength of this book, though, is its practical recommendations for every topic it addresses (visualization, self-control, team cohesion, confidence, and mental toughness to name a handful). For example, Beswick gives the example of a striker who is not scoring goals in the chapter on confidence. How does the coach, in cooperation with the player, address the situation to help him regain confidence? Beswick asserts that other components of his job description should be brought to his attention (by asking the player), and that he should be encouraged to self-evaluate his performance based on how well he completed all of the aspects of his job description, not just scoring goals. This may sound like a "feel good" tactic at first glance, but Beswick also provides case studies of specific players at the highest levels who were positively affected by this approach (In this case, Dean Sturridge of Derby County). The book encourages a holistic approach to both coaching and playing, and discusses the benefits and potential pitfalls along the way to creating that holistic balance within a team and its players. Indeed, this is the kind of coaching and type of player that must prevail in the future if soccer is to continue to grow and develop, and Bill Beswick has done the sport of soccer and those who love it a distinct service by writing this book.