Soccer Tough 2: Advanced Psychology Techniques for Footballers

by Dan Abrahams

Global soccer psychologist Dan Abrahams is back with a follow up to his groundbreaking, international bestseller Soccer Tough.

In Soccer Tough 2: Advanced Psychology Techniques for Footballers Dan introduces soccer players to more cutting edge tools and techniques to help them develop the game of their dreams.

Soccer Tough 2 is split into four sections – Practice, Prepare, Perform, and Progress and Dan’s goal is simple – to help players train better, prepare more thoroughly, perform with greater consistency and progress faster.

Each section offers readers an assortment of development strategies and game philosophies that bring the psychology of soccer to life. They are techniques that have been proven on pitches and with players right across the world.

Like the original Soccer Tough, this book has been designed to be readable, accessible, and no-nonsense. Every chapter is short, engaging and packed full of stories from some of the best men and women soccer players in the world today.

- Develop a no limit attitude towards your potential
- Create a world class improvement programme for your soccer
- Ramp up your training attitude using cutting-edge motivational theories
- Prepare to play with energy and confidence
- Use your ‘controllers’ to manage your focus, your intensity, and your emotions on the pitch
- Learn to play under pressure like the best footballers in the world do
- Measure and build your self-belief

Soccer Tough 2 has been written with one thing in mind… to make you the best footballer you can be.

Genres: Psychology, Sports, Soccer, Football

218 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 4, 2015

About the author

Dan Abrahams is a global sport psychologist, working alongside leading players, teams, coaches and organisations across the world. Dan was a former professional golfer and PGA qualified, he has a First Class Honours degree in psychology and Masters degree in sport psychology. Academically he is a visiting lecturer at several universities and he holds registration with the HCPC. Dan works in all sport but specialises in soccer psychology and golf psychology, plus he also serves the Corporate Sector delivering his sport psychology techniques and philosophies to individuals and group.

Reviews

[Samar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was about psychology in football and how to use them. The author, Dan Abrahams, expressed every trick there is to know really clearly and stated it succinctly. I gave this only 4 stars because of the fact that my dad had already read this book and he had already told me a lot of the things that were written in the book so not much was that surprising or new. The best thing that I learned from the book was about squashing the ANTS which means Automatic Negative Thoughts. I think you should read this book because if you are struggling how to deal with things in football or anything really this book will teach you everything there is to know to deal with them.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

6 stars. I loved this book. I'm beginning to take a lot of what I do in work around change and transformation and then apply them into the sports I'm involved with and now more and more vice versa. Taking what I'm learning in sport and then applying that into business. There are some very interesting psychological techniques that I learnt here that I'm already beginning to apply in my training with Samar & Roman. The key takeaway from the book was the use of controllers (a bit like the games console controllers you have). Dan says that players should use 2 things to help them mitigate any difficult situations they face on the football pitch. 1: body language and 2: self-talk. With body language this is all about how you restructure and reposition your body after some minor / major mistake you have made (remember there are no such things are mistakes .. just leaning opportunities). Physically repositioning your body into a superman pose of a position of strength can help to alleviate any mental difficulties you are having dealing with the mistake you may have made. The second is self talk. Dan suggest creating maybe 4/5 phrases sentences that you can script and remind yourself of after you have made a mistake. The language you use is critical. You have to spot the ANTS he calls them (automatic negative thoughts) and then crush them immediately with language and then move on. Here are the best bits from the book:
• Pressure hates a mindset / mind”not”set that is nimble and flexible, one that can alter quickly.
• Your subjective opinion of your game is like a magnet to your true ability. A footballer WILL NOT play consistently better than the image they have created of themselves.
• Excellence in football isn’t just found amongst dancing feet. It is also created within the quiet corridors of the mind. Boxers will whisper strategic reminders to their bodies – the ones they need to use as their fights play out.
• Your external sensations – the speed of your boots on the ground, the sharpness in your movement, the penetration of the runs that you make, your ability to find space and use that space – they are all heavily influenced into how you feel going into the game. There are 2 primary feelings that impact and influence a player’s performance: confidence and energy. So before, during and after your game id lie you to imagine the feelings of confidence you have and the feelings of energy you have.
• Superman power pose: participants were asked to hold he superman power pose for a couple of minutes and then scientists measured any hormonal changes that might have taken place over this short period of time. They found that by simply placing individuals into these power poses, participants had an increase in testosterone levels and a decrease in the stress hormone levels of cortisol. The power pose also increased the participants propensity for risk taking.
• A famous psychologist once said: “stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself” – champions in sport speak to themselves confidently. They act confidently. When others around them panic, they use their self-talk to send a pulse of calmness around their body. Wow I'm in defence and up against a good team and its going to be tough to keep a clean sheet today! STOP that negative self-talk. Say that following to yourself: “this means that I will have to make sure I'm really vocal and command my area more. I've got to stay on my toes and make sure my other defenders see me lead and manage the area!”
• Just as mind affects body, so body impacts mindset.
• Sprinting on coals: “I want you to get this right and run faster. I want you to drive your foot into the floor. Then I want you to imagine your feet are hitting hot coals, too hot to touch for any period – create power in your legs and speed in your feet.”
• To regain confidence: stand tall, get on your toes (coals of fire), dance your feet. Lift your head, open your eyes wide and look around.
• Skills like confidence, focus, self-belief, discipline, listening, dedication, learning and understanding. Skills like emotional management, effort, perseverance, self-regulation, self-awareness, timing flexibly and leadership. Skills like the ability to cope through tough times, self-sufficiency, motivation, empathy, initiative, self-assessment and the ability to get on with others.
• Its your job to think and act like there are no limits to your ability. Doing your physical work and competing your running sets is a lethargy busting activity that is a no-negotiable for high performing athlete and it should be the same for you also.
• Work technically, work mentally and work physically. Become soccer tough in the gym. Lift weights and compete the right number of sets. Eat well and sleep better. You have a bottom less pit of potential.
• Finally, let’s think about the social side of the game. Are you always on time (or early) for training? Are you a great teammate – a strong communicator, a keen listener, an ear lender, and a strong leader or focused follower? Are you coachable or do you have a tendency to be closed-minded?
• Greatness is a private affair. Its achieved behind closed doors, away from the public gaze, on the relative quiet of the training pitch.
• At a premiership club I worked at for several years, I repeatedly had youth team players wrap medical tape around their wrist and asked them to write their script in big bold letters across the tape. I wanted them to look regularly a what they’d written – between plays, drills and small sided games. I wanted their memory jolted every few minutes about their purpose - to develop, to improve, to learn.
• When you put your brain effort into training you use up a lot of glucose. Intentional training depletes you of your glucose and your sugars that help you concentrate and stay alert. It requires brain power and it can be exhausting. I often say to my players that after training, physical tiredness should be nothing compared to the mental fatigue that they feel. Brain effort is wearing on both mind and body.
• Create a mental blue print that helps players manage the emotional ups and downs that soccer delivers.
• Brainstorming how you will deal with problems and challenges you may face on the pitch is a detail you can’t ignore. It’s a 5 minute mental procedure that separates champions from runners up.
• Sport is about dealing with disappointments. Losses happen, you cannot control them, but what you can control is your response to them. You must be ready to quickly accept the disappointment and move on.

[Roman Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i gave this book 4 stars because it excellently executeed these main ideas of what young footballers but also mature footballers struggle with with excellent solutions. it talks a lot about the mental side of the game and reinforced several ideas througjout the book to really get his point across. for example squash the ANTs stood for automatic negative thoughts and this visual image of these sometimes big thoughts being turned into tiny ants which you are meant to stomp and squash helps with a footballers game. id recommend this book for people who want to reach their next level in football and get better mentally for their football career ( training and matches)

[Zak Schmoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an expansion of the author's first excellent effort. True to the title, this book is a bit more intense. However, I do think a lot of the techniques in this book will work. The author is a big believer in controlling what you are able to control. You can control your body control and your own self talk and the messages you are feeding your mind. A lot of what he says feels like common sense, but I think that is the beauty of it. This book is also very much worth the read.

[Huss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Match Script + Body/Energy Controllers + Self Talk