Category: Sport. Title: Motivation in Football.

Motivation in Football

Getting players to perform well all the time can be dificult for any football coach. Understanding what motivates footballers can help to increase their levels of performance both in training and on match day. This article looks at what motives people have for participation and how to use your understanding to keep all the individuals within the team motivated in every session.

Motivation can be defined as an individual’s direction and intensity of effort towards a task. The direction refers whether players seek out activities such as training, gym sessions or extra help like 1 to 1 sessions. This could also apply to coaches who enrol on coach education courses and seek out resources. The Intensity refers to how much effort is then applied to these activities

It is thought that an individual player’s motivation results from both their own personality and characteristics and also the situation they find themselves in and the task they are performing. Age is also a major factor in a player’s motivation, for those working with really young tots of around 4 years old you could find that they have a lack of interest in competition. This is because at that age they are more responsive to self-comparison and trying to complete individual tasks. Above the age of 5 players become more focused on social comparison therefore adding competition to a session will increase their motivation, however leaving them to complete their own tasks may be less successful. Older players can develop an integrated approach to motivation where they respond to both self-comparison and social comparison, therefore both competition and individual tasks gain the same level of motivation. While a degree of integrated motivation is present in most adults they could still lean more towards either self or social comparison.

Before the coach can begin to motivate their players they must first understand what motives the players have for participating. With children the most common responses are to develop, show competence at a task, excitement and having fun. While adults differ slightly with their main responses being to keep fit and healthy, to challenge themselves, have fun and socialize with friends. For each individual player these will be different and could involve a lot of motives or just a few, it is important as the coach to get to know your players motives. Players can have competing motives such as really enjoying the challenge of a Saturday football match but then also wanting to spend time with the family, if a coach ignores this then the player could cease to participate. However, the coach who is aware can talk to the player and come to an arrangement that suits both parties. Motivation is very individual and each player’s motives for playing will be unique so getting to know your players should be a priority.

Whilst getting to know what motives the players have for participation you may also begin to understand the individual characteristics of the player which will help you to assess what is affecting a player’s motivation when it does appear to be lacking. A Lack of motivation could come solely from the individual’s characteristics or the situation however, it is more than likely a mixture of the 2. If this situation arises then as a coach it is easier in the short term to change the situation i.e. the activity the players are performing.

Creating a situation that allows all the players in your team to be motivated is not an easy task and takes a great understanding of your players and also an element of trial and error to see what works. Some tips to help create a highly motivated group session are;
• Keep an element of fun involved even for elite players
• Give the players some responsibility for the activities
• Explain why certain activities are being performed, if they understand why they are more likely to perform
• Remember that everyone is motivated differently so individualize your comments

The coach is the final and possibly most important part of motivating a group of footballers. The coach is the one who sets the tempo of the session and motivates the players to participate. This means that the coach needs to be exciting, enthusing and focused on the activity if that is what he expects from the players, even if it is an act to set the tempo of the session. If the coach is boring and downbeat then the session will take the same path.

James Ryder

Visit www.wineverything.co.uk to find out more about sports science in football

References for the above article include;
R. S. Weinberg & D. Gould, Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2003
V. Lombardi Jr, The Lombardi Rules, 2003

Date written: Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:40:01 +0100

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