Helping To Develop Mental Toughness

Young developing athletes are particularly prone to becoming casualties of the performance roller-coaster of competitive sport.  Too many good athletes give up because they “…have the talent, but weren’t born with the competitive instinct”. It is a myth that you are either “born with it”- or not.
The mentally tough competitor is consistent. This requires two ingredients:

• good technique and form,
• and good mental skills and attitude

James E. Loehr believes that there are a constellation of mental skills, all of which are learned, that are characteristic of mentally tough competitors. They are:

• Self-motivation and self-direction
• Positive but realistic
• Being in control of emotions
• Calm and relaxed under fire
• Highly energetic and ready for action
• Determined
• Mentally alert and focused
• Self-confident
• Fully responsible

What you as a parent say to your child before and after competition, and during their training season, is crucial in building or destroying their resilience and mental toughness. You will be very influential in forming their mindset for reacting to errors, failure and criticism, as well as winning and succeeding.

Here are some tips to help you build your child’s mental toughness:

1. Help your child to learn something from every sports experience – regardless of whether they win or lose. Sport is about learning to deal with challenges and obstacles. What did they learn about themselves, their attitude, their strategy? Did they show good sportsmanship? Did they give their best effort? Were they willing to take risks? Encourage mental flexibility by getting them to view the situation from various perspectives.
2. Teach them that they need not fear failing. Most poor performance is a direct result of a pre-occupation with failing or messing up. Use failures in a positive way as a source of motivation and feedback to improve. Most successful people in and out of sport are not people with less failure under their belt. They have as many failures as everyone else on their way up – they just bounce back quicker. If your child plays his best, but loses, you need to help them feel like a winner. Success and failure should not be seen as equal to winning and losing. If a child performs far below their potential but wins, this is not necessarily cause for them to feel like a winner. Help your child to make the distinction between success and failure, winning and losing. Winning is about doing the very best that you can do on the day. Encourage great performances, good play, sportsmanship – and not just winning.
3. Help your child to separate their self-worth from their performance. Their overall value as a person, and their self-worth should not be equated to their performance. If they’ve had a bad day and a bad game – they are not useless – rather their performance was lacking. Do not withdraw emotionally from your child to punish them for a poor performance or to your disappointment or frustration. Do not show disgust, degrade, embarrass or humiliate them. Do not use threats or guilt to motivate your child. Don’t make them feel as if they have to win in order to be “good enough” or please you as parents.
4. Help them to create healthy, constructive channels to express and work through emotions such as disappointment, anger, frustration. It is important that they be given permission to feel disappointed, but not to indulge in self-pity, or behave destructively or immaturely. Show them how to keep their composure. This will enable them to respond better during stressful situations.
5. Teach them to communicate honestly with their coaches. Do not mix your role of parent with that of coach. As a parent you can encourage and support, show empathy and understanding. The last thing your child needs when they have had a bad game is for you to lecture them on technique and game strategy. Leave this to their coach.
6. Encourage them to be fully responsible for their performance – good or bad. In other words don’t let them blame other people or factors for not doing well.
7. Make sure that your child is still enjoying their sport. Often, what started as something that they loved doing, becomes something that is fraught with stress and anxiety as the stakes get higher. Children who love what they are doing are going to perform better and more consistently, and learn faster than children with high anxiety.

2013 State Cup Brackets Announced

A1 : CUP Crew Jrs Gold

A2 : OP Eagles Green

A3 : Crew Juniors Gold

Winner of CWSC Bulldogs vs Kolping Cheetahs

B1 : Classics Eagles Red

B2 : Courage 98 Premier

B3 : CUP Black

B4 : Club Ohio Cincinnati

C1 : Kha Blue

C2 : TFA Elite

C3 : BSC Elite

C4 : Hammer FC 98 Premier

D1 : WC United G98 Blue

D2 : Barcelona Ohio Academy

D3 : Club Ohio Green

D4 : Blast FC

College Recruiting Guide

Very, very helpful document here (pdf).

Bob Downs On The Spring Season

Dear Warren County U14 Elite Parents

First let me say how excited I am to work with the team this spring!  I would like to take some time to get to know you as parents and will probably phone at some point to chat and get to know you better.  Also, I commonly schedule time to meet with each player individually to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and set realistic goals for them as well as to help them in their improvement.  I do this for all my players and as they get older also spend time talking with them about college soccer.

This also enables the player to get to know me better and for me to get to know them as well and helps me to try to do the most I can to help the player and, of course, the team.

Typically, I do this at away tournaments - but we will probably have to try and schedule it a different way.  If we are able to get a meeting scheduled, then you as a parent are welcome to attend or not attend depending on what you feel is appropriate.

I want to stress that I have no intention to change the style of play or the formation that the team is presently playing or try to undo any of the excellent work that Paulo has already done with this team - only add to what they already know and can do!

There are several things to outline to everybody and the schedule and why we are doing things a certain way.  The team will be training for the most part with the U15 Girls Elite.  This team is a high level team with quality players that will challenge the U14 team both technically and physically and demand them to play at a high level as opposed to training and scrimmaging against lower level teams in the same age group, where the 14 Elite will dominate in every aspect and not be stretched to perform and frankly, get better.  All of the best teams and player have developed by being challenged - not being comfortable.  On the flip side - this team is quite capable of challenging the 15 Elite and ensuring that they are improving as well.  This will also enable the team to work on learning things in a larger 11v11 setting where they can also develop the skills to cope with all teams need to work on - Set pieces attacking and defending, Team organization and shape, and organized team defending.

The main topics that we plan to address in the group are as follows:

● Tactically- team organization and decision making

● Individual and team defending- team defensive shape, - when to drop, when to step, recovery defending.  This also includes pressing teams immediately when the ball is lost, and when it is appropriate to do so.  High level soccer has been going this way for years and you will see  all the high level teams  (Barcelona,  U.S. Women's National team) press teams in an organized way when it is "on" to do so- but it must be done with a plan- Pressing does not mean not playing attacking soccer or passing the ball- if you watch Barcelona play, the best team in world for the past few years- they pass and play- but one of their secrets to success is that they press teams when they lose the ball so that they can have it to attack!

● Defending at Set Pieces from balls flighted into the box both from free kicks and corners- how to mark, clear push out and organize - building into counter-attacking from served set pieces and corners

● Attacking at Set Pieces- corners and free- kicks

● Defending in transition (when the ball changes hands)- defensive recovery and tracking runners

● Attacking in transition - counter- attacking at speed- patterns of play to do this

● Crossing and Finishing from Crosses , both in terms of the techniques needed to score as well as runs into the box, and the technique of how to cross the ball and different types of crosses for different situations

● Finishing and Shooting from all angles- including from the pass/combination play, also from off the dribble

● Advanced Technical Skills (Really, a combination of Technical- the how to/ skill and Tactical- decision making- the actual term is Technical- Tactical)  These are techniques and skills used to expand the players range of decisions, vision and reading of the game- particularly as they apply to their position.

● Weak foot for passing/ receiving- being able to play from right to left as well a left to right. 

● All aerial controls and volleys

● Receiving and Turning- different types of receiving techniques- opening the body to the field of play- decision to turn or lay off- double passing- third man runs and passes- how to show for the ball -use of eye contact.

● Heading- jumping off one foot to attack balls both offensively and defensively- heading in different situations

● Playing with the back to goal and playing while receiving from a diagonal run- these are similar but different/ distinct techniques and situations

● Runs of forwards- linking with the Midfield and backs

● Tactical delivery of Passes  - bending the ball into runs (with the run and into the run), Chipping, driving balls and "dropping" balls into forwards, slotting the ball through flat defenses, disguising passes- some of these are longer passes- some shorter

 This list is not all the stuff we will do, nor is it necessarily in the order that we intend to do them but are some the main things that we need to focus on- a few of the topics every training session  - this is true for some of the topics for these teams in particular and for many  teams in general.  These teams can already play but we need to expand the range of things they can do / know and understand to play at a higher level.   We will play some 11v11/scrimmage in order to work on some of the topics outlined above .  Some of these topics may change as the season goes on and we analyze and  watch their games.  Some of it also depends on the players and the time of season- sometimes it is good to get them out and there and just play- but not all the time.

Looking forward to working with the team!   Thank you for letting me coach your daughter- hopefully I can help her to improve on her soccer journey.

Bob Downs

KSA Elite Spring Thaw U14 Accepted Teams

Michigan Jaguars  99 Green		Michigan
Beechmont SC Elite 98		Ohio South
Cincinnati Soccer Alliance		Ohio South
Excalibur SC		Ohio North
Kentucky Fire Juniors 99 Girls Premier Red		Kentucky
Kingdom Premier 99		Michigan
Kings Hammer Academy Red		Kentucky
Lexington FC 99 Girls White		Kentucky
Metro FC Toledo Courage		Ohio North
Metro FC Toledo Lightning		Ohio North
Michigan Rush Jackson 99G Nike		Michigan
Michigan Rush Downriver 99 Nike		Michigan
NSA Rockets		Illinois
SWISA Lady Fury		Indiana
Team Chicago Academy Brasilia		Illinois
TNT Dynamite 99 Red		Michigan
Tri State Futbol Alliance Premier		Ohio South
Warren County SC 98 Elite		Ohio South
WAZA FC East 99 Royalo		Michigan
Waza FC East 99 Black		Michigan
Waza FC West 99 Black		Michigan
Westfield Select SC 99G Gold		Indiana