mental fatigue in football

[dholliday]

Thomas Müller, like most German footballers, is an intelligent chap. By law he had to, like all German kids, attend 34 hours of school a week until his late-teens regardless of how his football apprenticeship was going (in England it's between 9-12 hours).

This schooling not just gives him the intellect to better understand tactics, handle pressure and appreciate spatial awareness, it also gives him the freedom and confidence to say what he wants in interviews, from sarcastically responding to a "is the aim now to get to the final?" question with "nah, our aim was always to get knocked out in the semis", to an interesting comment on the mental pressure footballers face, including a bit on the English. The video segment is here (couldn't find a Youtube of it):

http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/article156837553/Muellers-ernster-Blick-aufs-Profigeschaeft.html


Rough translation:

Of course a well-trained sportsman can run a few kms every few days. The issue is more the mental fatigue. After this tournament we've only got a short break then we meet with our clubs, soon after that the season starts again. We don't really get mental pauses, chances to properly wind down. Football is a massive lively business, as you reporters know. There's always something going on for the top footballers outside of training/playing (implying interviews, marketing and the like). There's hardly time to be able to mentally switch off.

The English don't even have a winter break (implying this is a part-reason for their regular failure in tournaments), and football generally is going in a direction of even more games, more exposure (the extension of the euros to 24 teams, plus more european club games and summer tours). We are the protagonists of this game, and as such it's important we get a chance to really be able to switch off from time to time, otherwise it can consume you. It'd be nice for there to be longer breaks for footballers, as right now it feels like all you get is a short chance to catch air, but then your head is put immediately under water again.

Not every individual can handle this constant mental pressure (implying this explains loss of form as well as deeper mental issues some may face).

We're in this (well-paid) business and we don't want to complain, but neither should we dismiss any concerns about mental fatigue.

Yes, they get paid obscene amounts, but they're not supermen. Most didn't get into football for the money, they got into it for the love of the sport. The money tends to blind many to the risks of ever-increasing the mental load.

It'd be interesting to see any information about how many hours a year the top footballers spent with non-football duties like promotion/interviews/marketing compared with the pre-Prem era. I'd imagine it's increased ten-fold. Sure, they become much richer for it, and it sounds like easy work. But as Müller says maybe we should also be aware of possible mental fatigue.

 

[bignev23]

I think it's only really a fairly small group that is permanently in the limelight and they could easily turn it in if they wanted to, I don't really think they have much to complain about on the whole.

 

[Alanbileysfeathercut]

Try this !

 

[RaleighBlue]

Interesting take.

Additionally, we should remember that most of these footballers are basically kids. They hit their prime in their late 20's. Hell, I didn't feel like an adult until I hit 30. So it's easy to see why they may get swept up by agents, brands, and salesmen for their time. Especially when you consider that most of them have ~10-15 years of a productive financial career.

You wonder if the next revolution in football will be a mental equivalent of the physical training improvements over the past 20 years. Getting players mentally ready for the rigors of constant, unrelenting pressure and performing has always been a key to sustained success. Some players do this instinctively - they simply have the personalities to perform. It makes you wonder whether that is something that can be trained and improved.

Or maybe larger squads with more rotation and in-season vacations will become the norm eventually.

Either way, we currently have a bunch of teens and 20-somethings with very little actual time off (and that time is specific - no taking a couple of days off in November because you need to unwind), surrounded by people trying to make money off of them, attempting to perform flawlessly for thousands of fans weekly. It's, at least, understandable why that would be difficult.

Hard to feel bad for them though...they are damn well compensated. But perhaps it should be taken into account before we boo 20 year olds for a bad couple of months?

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

They wanna try the mental fatigue of watching some of these billy big shots underperform throughout their careers

 

[canuckblue]

Wouldn't apply to the brainless tw@ts across the park....

 

[bizzaro]

Thomas Müller, like most German footballers, is an intelligent chap. By law he had to, like all German kids, attend 34 hours of school a week until his late-teens regardless of how his football apprenticeship was going (in England it's between 9-12 hours).

This schooling not just gives him the intellect to better understand tactics, handle pressure and appreciate spatial awareness, it also gives him the freedom and confidence to say what he wants in interviews, from sarcastically responding to a "is the aim now to get to the final?" question with "nah, our aim was always to get knocked out in the semis", to an interesting comment on the mental pressure footballers face, including a bit on the English. The video segment is here (couldn't find a Youtube of it):

http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/article156837553/Muellers-ernster-Blick-aufs-Profigeschaeft.html


Rough translation:



Yes, they get paid obscene amounts, but they're not supermen. Most didn't get into football for the money, they got into it for the love of the sport. The money tends to blind many to the risks of ever-increasing the mental load.

It'd be interesting to see any information about how many hours a year the top footballers spent with non-football duties like promotion/interviews/marketing compared with the pre-Prem era. I'd imagine it's increased ten-fold. Sure, they become much richer for it, and it sounds like easy work. But as Müller says maybe we should also be aware of possible mental fatigue.

Listen.

There's plenty of photos of them enjoying themselves on holiday in the summer.

My heart is bleeding here.

I know for a fact they don't work all day. They have 'sessions', Its not mentally taxing like people in the real world economy are facing right now. Or ordinary joe is - working in a factory.

So frankly he's talking drivel.

We should stop wrapping people in cotton wool. Making excuses for failure.

 

[KaiserEFC]

He can swap lives with me if he likes.

 

[l4toffee]

My heart bleeds

 

[tsubaki]

You wonder if the next revolution in football will be a mental equivalent of the physical training improvements over the past 20 years. Getting players mentally ready for the rigors of constant, unrelenting pressure and performing has always been a key to sustained success. Some players do this instinctively - they simply have the personalities to perform. It makes you wonder whether that is something that can be trained and improved.

I think you are wrong, but this is certainly what some people will try to use to make money out of gullible / faddish managers and chairmen.

If anything, the problem isn't mental fatigue - after all most of the Wales side play in the same league as most of the England team - its mental toughness, or more specifically not having reserves of it to call on.

If you use that Welsh side as an example, most of them - bar Ramsey and Bale - are people who were told at a young age that they were failures; they had to deal with that and beat it. If you look at that Leicester side that won the league, most of them were told the same thing at a similar age and had to overcome it. Messi was told at a very young age that his (even then realistic) dreams of being a footballer were doomed unless he had medical treatment that his family couldn't afford and Argentinian clubs wouldn't pay for; he had to overcome that (and moving thousands of miles away from his home).

The problem England have specifically is that, at present and for the past decade or so, English youth players are carefully protected and nurtured from a very young age; they don't get to experience anything else other than football (and the issues that revolve around it), and the national team makes it worse by tending to select those who have made a successful transition through that system, rather than those who failed it and then fought to get back. For instance, look at how Woy only picked Vardy from Leicester to play (and even then only begrudgingly), whilst he had far more confidence in selecting Dele Alli, Kane, Dier etc from a Spurs team which imploded almost as spectacularly as England did. Or look at the "golden generation", which was built around the Class of 92 but without the backbone that Keane (rejected by loads of clubs as too small) gave it, which is why they won loads at United but nothing with England.

Not sure how this could be fixed; though removing football as much as possible from youth players (as the OP states Muller did three times as much schooling as a British player would) so that they experience other things in more detail (and conceive of a life away from football) would probably help a bit.

 

[deipnosophist]

I genuinely believe that winning the title two seasons in a row is very difficult due to mental fatigue. Hell, you just climb a bloody big mountain (win the PL) and are exhausted. Then, just 12 weeks later, you've got to begin the journey all over again. That's daunting.
Mourinho messed up last season by not rejuvenating (transfer market- wise) his champions Chelsea squad...and look how they bombed.
Leicester I feel are really going to struggle unless they get new bods in.
The season is way too long really

 

[COYBL25]

I think you are wrong, but this is certainly what some people will try to use to make money out of gullible / faddish managers and chairmen.

If anything, the problem isn't mental fatigue - after all most of the Wales side play in the same league as most of the England team - its mental toughness, or more specifically not having reserves of it to call on.

If you use that Welsh side as an example, most of them - bar Ramsey and Bale - are people who were told at a young age that they were failures; they had to deal with that and beat it. If you look at that Leicester side that won the league, most of them were told the same thing at a similar age and had to overcome it. Messi was told at a very young age that his (even then realistic) dreams of being a footballer were doomed unless he had medical treatment that his family couldn't afford and Argentinian clubs wouldn't pay for; he had to overcome that (and moving thousands of miles away from his home).

The problem England have specifically is that, at present and for the past decade or so, English youth players are carefully protected and nurtured from a very young age; they don't get to experience anything else other than football (and the issues that revolve around it), and the national team makes it worse by tending to select those who have made a successful transition through that system, rather than those who failed it and then fought to get back. For instance, look at how Woy only picked Vardy from Leicester to play (and even then only begrudgingly), whilst he had far more confidence in selecting Dele Alli, Kane, Dier etc from a Spurs team which imploded almost as spectacularly as England did. Or look at the "golden generation", which was built around the Class of 92 but without the backbone that Keane (rejected by loads of clubs as too small) gave it, which is why they won loads at United but nothing with England.

Not sure how this could be fixed; though removing football as much as possible from youth players (as the OP states Muller did three times as much schooling as a British player would) so that they experience other things in more detail (and conceive of a life away from football) would probably help a bit.

Looking at the way the Rugby Football Union manages potential pro youth players would be a starting point mate :

In a nutshell. Although the kids may have been identified as potential pro players, clubs aren't allowed to approach them until they are fourteen. All contact has to be done through the parents, the kids rugby club and the school. If the child starts falling behind in school or behaving like billy big boots, then the kid stops playing rugby until the grades go back up or the attitude improves. All of this is monitored by the RFU, who oversee everything.

In other words young lads know that they have to behave and do their best in school or they are out.

 

[RaleighBlue]

I think you are wrong, but this is certainly what some people will try to use to make money out of gullible / faddish managers and chairmen.

If anything, the problem isn't mental fatigue - after all most of the Wales side play in the same league as most of the England team - its mental toughness, or more specifically not having reserves of it to call on.

If you use that Welsh side as an example, most of them - bar Ramsey and Bale - are people who were told at a young age that they were failures; they had to deal with that and beat it. If you look at that Leicester side that won the league, most of them were told the same thing at a similar age and had to overcome it. Messi was told at a very young age that his (even then realistic) dreams of being a footballer were doomed unless he had medical treatment that his family couldn't afford and Argentinian clubs wouldn't pay for; he had to overcome that (and moving thousands of miles away from his home).

The problem England have specifically is that, at present and for the past decade or so, English youth players are carefully protected and nurtured from a very young age; they don't get to experience anything else other than football (and the issues that revolve around it), and the national team makes it worse by tending to select those who have made a successful transition through that system, rather than those who failed it and then fought to get back. For instance, look at how Woy only picked Vardy from Leicester to play (and even then only begrudgingly), whilst he had far more confidence in selecting Dele Alli, Kane, Dier etc from a Spurs team which imploded almost as spectacularly as England did. Or look at the "golden generation", which was built around the Class of 92 but without the backbone that Keane (rejected by loads of clubs as too small) gave it, which is why they won loads at United but nothing with England.

Not sure how this could be fixed; though removing football as much as possible from youth players (as the OP states Muller did three times as much schooling as a British player would) so that they experience other things in more detail (and conceive of a life away from football) would probably help a bit.

I don't think you're wrong.

I also don't think my statement and yours conflict necessarily. Perhaps the correct 'mental training regimen' is simply getting them away from football more often when they're younger to give them life experience that assists them on the big stage.

I'm just thinking that mentality has a huge effect on success, and wonder if that is the next area for revolution as physical training approaches diminishing returns.

 

[bicycleheader]

Time for Hibbo to set up his Fishing for Footballers Foundation, helping reduce mental fatigue throughout the beautiful game. You can see the promo pics of Hibbo and his clients already. Ozil flyfishing. Lukaku surrounded by cans on the riverbed and not really doing much fishing at all while Hibbo shows him his tackle.

Some talented photoshopper could def do that up.

 

[Tramps_mate]

Thomas Müller, like most German footballers, is an intelligent chap. By law he had to, like all German kids, attend 34 hours of school a week until his late-teens regardless of how his football apprenticeship was going (in England it's between 9-12 hours).

This schooling not just gives him the intellect to better understand tactics, handle pressure and appreciate spatial awareness, it also gives him the freedom and confidence to say what he wants in interviews, from sarcastically responding to a "is the aim now to get to the final?" question with "nah, our aim was always to get knocked out in the semis", to an interesting comment on the mental pressure footballers face, including a bit on the English. The video segment is here (couldn't find a Youtube of it):

http://www.welt.de/sport/fussball/article156837553/Muellers-ernster-Blick-aufs-Profigeschaeft.html


Rough translation:



Yes, they get paid obscene amounts, but they're not supermen. Most didn't get into football for the money, they got into it for the love of the sport. The money tends to blind many to the risks of ever-increasing the mental load.

It'd be interesting to see any information about how many hours a year the top footballers spent with non-football duties like promotion/interviews/marketing compared with the pre-Prem era. I'd imagine it's increased ten-fold. Sure, they become much richer for it, and it sounds like easy work. But as Müller says maybe we should also be aware of possible mental fatigue.

So our footballers are thick?