The ball lands at your feet. You look around and see teammates running around calling for the ball. "Drop it," yells your coach. "Shoot it," yells your dad. Your brain is filled with confusion so you lose the ball. "Come, on," yells a teammate.You feel like hitting yourself in the face. "Why do I suck so much," you think. The above example is in a way, what many players must face: pressure from parents, coaches, teammates, and themselves. It is not wonder that many players suffer from lack of confidence.
Do you Lack Confidence?
Here are some things that you may be doing if you are lacking confidence:
- You fear going to practice and games.
- You find yourself making excuses to skip practices or games.
- While in a practice or game you think negatively.
- You fear being looked at by a coach, parent, or teammate while you have the ball.
- You suddenly freeze in a game or practice.
- You don’t want to go into a game.
These are just some signs of not having adequate soccer confidence.The best way to tell is to look at yourself.If you think about it, you can tell if you have soccer confidence.Even if you do have some soccer confidence, do you do all of these things?
- You may be nervous before a game or even practice, but you still go. When you get there and start playing your nervousness goes away.
- You are not scared to talk to teammates about things they do wrong, or let them tell you what they do wrong.
- Can turn your nervousness or excitement into adrenaline.(explained later)
- You want to take your set pieces or PKs.
- You want to play as much as possible.
- Coaches yell at you and tell you negative things about your play in a bad way.
- Parents tell you negative things about your play in a bad way.
- Teammates make fun of you.
- Teammates tell you negative things about your play in a bad way.
- Over confidence in soccer
- Soccer Teammates
If you do all these things you are in good shape confidence wise. However, you might be too confident to the point where it is a bad thing. This is an example of .
- What Takes Your Confidence?There are many things that can make you confident. Soccer is a very emotional game.A loss in confidence is common and usually happens to everyone.
- Why are they negative? Most of the time, negativity is supposed to help you. Your coach probably thinks he's motivating you to try harder; your parents might just be trying to push you to be better; and your teammates might just be trying to help the team and take on a leadership role.
- However, there are times when people are jealous of you or have other problems that cause negativity. It is never your fault when someone is negative to you, unless you blatantly disregard orders. For example, if your coach constantly tells you to pass the ball more and you still hog the ball, your coach obviously would get mad.
How do you stop it?
- I recommend that if a parent is acting negatively that you tell them politely to stop.Tell them that you are trying to listen to the coach and though you value their opinion, it is making you confused.Most of the time parents do not understand their negative comments are hurting you.They want you to succeed as much as you are.Also, if a sibling is telling you negative things, inform your parents.
- Coaches are always going to be negative.The best way is to learn how to deal with it.However, if a coach is being particularly ridiculous, talk to him or have your parents talk to him.Tell him that you appreciate his input, but you would appreciate it if he took some negativity out.
Dealing with it
If you have done the stopping it steps hopefully some of the negativity is gone.However, the most important thing is dealing with the negativity.
Parents
Listen Coaches aren’t always right, but it is worth trying what they say.If your coach makes a lot of negative or mean comments to teammates, you should laugh about it with them.NOT IN FRONT OF HIM.Do imitations, stuff like that lets you realize you aren’t the only one that doesn’t like getting yelled at.Block him out.Not totally, but sometimes you need to take the coach’s opinion with a grain of salt.
Don't let it bother you. Kids often stop the insults (at least a little) if you act like it doesn't bother you.
Confront.A good way to shut up negative teammates is to tell him to stop in front of everyone. It will make it awkward for them/him, and they will probably think twice before insulting you again.
Get better. It's hard to make fun of a quality player, so improving might be an option. Just make sure that you are not just improving so you will stop the teasing, it has to be fun for you too.
Dealing with Nervousness
- Teammates are supposed to help each other improve their game.Learning to deal with their negativity is probably the best way.However, if they are trying to be mean, inform the coach.If you are in an older group, it is best to talk to him about it.Tell him that the feud between you has to stop for the good of the team.More info is in the . When you are playing a game, don’t let your parents or anyone on the sidelines affect your game.It takes some practice, but eventually you will be able to zone them out.What helps the most is adrenaline, which I will tell you how to get later. Soccer as I said before is an emotional game.You’re going to be nervous.However, when you do the things mentioned above, you should feel more confident.Here are some tips to deal with the nervousness that remains.
- Look at negative comments as a way to better yourself, not as something to pressure you.
- Take slow deep breaths, this is scientifically proven to calm yourself.If you watch soccer or any other sports, you will probably see athletes doing this.
- The golden rule is be positive not negative.If you can transfer the negative thoughts into positive, you will improve greatly.
- Get a pre-game routine.Making this a habit before the game will naturally make you feel at ease.Pray, visualize, listen to music.Do whatever you want that relaxes you.
- Train, if you are good at soccer your, confidence will improve.If you are not confident about something, practice it constantly.Remember what I said before to block out the crowd. No matter how big it is, you can block it out.Remember, you have probably, depending on your age, played hundreds of soccer games before.You also, probably practice often.Be confident, you have done this before.Visualize.Think of what will happen.Go through plays in your head.
- Get pumped up.
- Hopefully, you are now confident if you went through the steps.I hope you thoroughly enjoyed this guide.There are more guides related to confidence here:
