One Goal: The Mindset of Winning Soccer Teams

by Bill Beswick

In soccer, perhaps more than any other sport, success hinges on team performance rather than individual play. As coaches are well aware, inspiring a group of players to perform as a finely tuned, coordinated unit is an on-going challenge. While several factors interfere with cohesion and flow of a soccer team, no published work has specifically addressed how to prevent and conquer such problems . . . until now. In One The Mindset of Winning Soccer Teams, internationally renowned performance psychologist and author of the best-selling Focused for Soccer, Bill Beswick, delivers an unrivaled guide to developing a winning team mindset. One Goal is arranged sequentially, providing invaluable insights on the various challenges facing coaches when pursuing a winning team mindset. You’ll find techniques, tools and suggestions to implement when addressing both common and unique challenges throughout the season. Specific contexts such as cup finals and tournaments are featured as well. Recognizing team mindset as a factor distinguishing success from failure, One Goal features proven strategies from one of soccer’s top performance psychologists. It’s a soon-to-be classic that you will turn to again and again.

Genres: Football, Soccer, Psychology

232 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2015

Reviews

[Ann Valdez]

One Goal: The Mindset of Winning Soccer Teams by Bill Beswick has great advice for a soccer coach, and much of the book has good tips for a coach of any sport. Every few pages, a highlighted box gives a great quote, a list of guidelines, or some other kind of tip which could actually be used as a poster in a locker room! One such example is, “Missing Practice 1. If I miss practice once, I will know . . . If I miss one week of practice, the fans will know.” The three main parts are direction, relationships, and performance. Checklists, pictures, tables and graphs may be found in the book. References and an index are included.
Even though the book is good and soccer coaches will probably really like it, I would have preferred more gender equality in its presentation. This is the United States. Women’s soccer is very popular, but yet the book is predominantly male oriented with a few areas containing female references. The photos are male dominated. Bill Beswick’s European and professional background comes through in the stories shared. Most likely, this is a great book soccer coaches will love. With the success of the United States women's soccer team, Mr. Beswick could have been more inclusive in the writing of this very good book.
I received this book through Library Thing and this is my honest review.

[Roman]

Great book with plenty examples how to implement theory in practice.
Took some notes and will try to use it for the amateur team :)

[Laura]

A great book on leadership. It is a bit repetitive, but overall it is helpful.