Which sport psychology talking points will dominate football in 2023?
Which sport psychology talking points will dominate football in 2023?
New year, same old discussions? Well, not quite. As we look ahead at the psychology-focused talking points which might dominate football in 2023, there are at least a couple of issues which have the potential to really change the nature of the debate concerning performance and mental health.
The list below is far from exhaustive - it’s intended to stimulate rather than stymie conversation - so if you have ideas which you think are worth including in this rundown, just leave a comment at the bottom of the page.
Personalised support
Real Madrid assistant manager Davide Ancelotti believes that all elite footballers will be hiring psychologists in the future (rather than relying on support provided by clubs) and with players such as Emerson Royal employing neuroscientists as part of a personal team costing almost £1m, he might be right.
There are potential pitfalls to this approach, though. Although regulations governing psychological support in English football are loose, their presence at least forces clubs to employ accredited professionals to help Academy players (if not first-team members). There's no such stipulation for players hiring their own psychologists, though, which leaves the door open for footballers to seek performance and mental health support from whoever they wish. It’s a trend that needs to be monitored closely in 2023.
Noisy appointments, quiet exits
When Ralf Rangnick (remember him?) appointed Sascha Lense as Manchester United's first-team psychologist in December 2021, a media frenzy (relative to the appointment of most backroom staff) ensued. 18 months later, little was heard of Lense as Eric Ten Hag announced that compatriot Rainer Koers would be providing psychological support for the Dutchman's squad.
Jesse Marsch's recent decision to enlist the services of a ‘psych’ to help Elland Road first-teamers was greeted by similar press interest (and subsequent radio silence from the club). Whilst it’s not unusual for teams to guard the work of backroom staff from public scrutiny, it's a shame that we've not seen a Premier League manager extol the virtues of their psychologist in the way, for example, Luis Enrique did in Euro 2020. Unfortunately, there's little to suggest we'll see praise to match Enrique’s in 2023: watch out for more trumpeted appointments with little follow-up.
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Data everywhere (except on TV)
It's been encouraging to see the way in which football journalists have begun to weave in or even focus entirely on scanning as a plot line within their stories. Whilst it's far from an exhaustive indication of a player's cognitive ability - it illustrates the extent of an individual’s visual perception and just that - it at least provides readers with an easily digestible, quantifiable measure that makes psychology more accessible.
If the BBC's coverage of the FA Cup is anything to go by, we'll be waiting some time for this kind of shorthand stat to make its way onto our screens, though. Analysing Chelsea's wretched first-half performance against Manchester City in the competition’s third round, Alan Shearer described the tactical shortcomings of Graham Potter's side fairly articulately, before addressing their psychological performance:
"They just didn't want it enough," he said.
Shearer is far from the only offender. Frustratingly, he (and other pundits) are more than capable of discussing the topic eruditely. During his half-time rant, for example, Shearer could easily have alluded to the number of changes Potter made to the team and poor recent form influencing players' feelings of connection and competence (and therefore motivation). this is an area in which I feel we could see some progress in 2023, building on the kind of discussion Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher opened-up following criticsm of Harry Maguire’s performances.
Regulatory reform?
The Premier League requires sports psychologists employed by its member teams to be on the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Register or one of the training routes which take participants towards HCPC registration. It also monitors psychology provision within Academies, which are analysed as part of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) audit process.
That regulation was last modified over three years ago, and, whilst it might not be out of line with any other European leagues, it's fair to question whether it's time to introduce tighter rules governing first-team psychological support.
David Wheeler, who has played at every level of English professional football below the Premier League, recently said that all sides across the country's top two flights of the game should be mandated to employ at least one accredited psychologist. Will it happen this year? Probably not, but it does feel as though the status quo needs to - and could - change at some point in the near future.
Pursuing perfection or developing people?
A recent study of Spanish youth players' experiences in club academies concluded that a culture of perfectionism - if focused solely on results - risked harming both youngsters' performances and mental health. The research findings, based on a questionnaire completed by 515 Spanish footballers aged between 14 and 19, all of whom played for professionaal youth academies in 2020-21, were striking.
In general, players tended to exhibit low frustration tolerance, social functioning and self-esteem, but those pursuing academic or personal interests in parallel to establishing a professional career show higher levels of autonomous motivation, passion and satisfaction (as part of a more adaptive psychological profile).
It supports the notion that we need to focus on developing people, rather than players. This Richard Dobson quote - taken from an interview I conducted with the Wycombe assistant manager a couple of years ago - sums up the ethos which should run through clubs’ programmes. Let's hope that if we make progress with one of these talking points this year, it's this one.
“Ultimately the aim of an Academy is to put players in your first team, but I’d be lying if I said that that was the sole reason for it (the programme). I’ve seen football chew up and spit out far too many kids.
“It’s soul destroying for some of these kids when they’re released from academies or the way that they’re treated within them. I wanted a method of support for those kids, so that they had a really safe environment to thrive and flourish in, and if they didn’t quite make it as a professional footballer, they received a solid grounding.”
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