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                                      How to Control Your Emotions on the Field

Do you have difficulty controlling your emotions during a soccer game?

Have you ever become so angry after a bad play that you yelled at your teammates, coach or even the ref?

Some soccer players get so upset that they just want to walk off the field in the middle of the game.

Negative emotions, such as anger, are difficult for some soccer players to manage and those runaway emotions can have a snowball effect on the mistakes they make throughout a game.

By far, the most taxing emotion in soccer is anger. Anger wears on a soccer player mentally and physically.

Anger is emotionally draining and pulls your attention away from playing soccer to a world inside your head of negative thoughts, fueling your anger even further.

Surely you can relate to feeling physically exhausted after a soccer game when anger raged inside of you.

We are asked this question a lot: How do I not get angry after mistakes and control my emotions?

First of all, don’t feel as if you are the only athlete who has a hard time with anger while performing; it is quite common among athletes in varying degrees.

Several mistakes in a row or missed chances can build your level of frustration. Hitting an open shot off the crossbar can turn that frustration into full blown anger.

That anger can lead to giving up on focusing and lunging wildly at the ball with no goal in mind. As you continue to add poor decisions, you can feel the anger swell inside.

While it may feel impossible–in that moment–to control your anger, you definitely can. You may not be able to prevent mistakes, but you can learn mental strategies to prevent losing your cool and accumulating stupid fouls.

You may notice that when you become angry, you retreat into your mind and become overly-critical of every little mistake.

Not only are there mental ramifications, physical consequences also become a challenge. When your anger rages, your heart rate becomes elevated and your breathing becomes shallow and rapid.

Soccer players stop communicating with teammates or lash out. They take longer to react because the are dwelling on the past.

You can learn to manage your negative emotions. For example, learning to refocus can help turn your attention away from replaying bad moments in your mind and help you focus on making the right decision in front of you.

Another way to manage your anger is to use relaxation strategies to calm your body and thus your mind.

Either way, it is important to realize that you are, ultimately, in the driver’s seat and not your emotions.

Managing Anger in Check on the Field

Most often, when soccer players get upset, they are failing to play up to their expectations, such as “I shouldn’t make any mistakes” or “I should win all 1v1 situations.”

First, you have to manage your pregame expectations and not put standards on your game before the start of the game.

Second, what are the top 5 triggers that make you angry while playing. What makes each mistake so awful for you? Write the trigger and your reaction as well.

Next, how can you respond differently in each of the same situations? How can you stop dwelling on the mistake? You want to have a new reaction to the mistake that will help you play on with composure.

The key is to understand that mistakes do not make you angry! How you react to mistakes makes you angry!

Published on May 9 

By Patrick Cohn

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A study by the Aspen Institute and Utah State University–commissioned by TeamSnap–revealed what parents want most from youth sports and kids’ ability to meet those goals.

Team Snap’s survey showed that parents, most of all, want kids to have fun, said Peter Frintzilas,  CEO of TeamSnap, a youth sports management app., in an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast.

Ninety-five percent of parents said they want their kids to have fun in sports, said the TeamSnap survey. Eighty-nine percent said mental health support is important and 88 percent said they want sports to enhance their kids’ physical health.

But parents’ goals haven’t been realized in the last two years, said Frintzilas. Only 54 percent of parents said their kids are still having fun. Only 52 percent said that participating in youth sports is having a positive impact on kids’ mental health. And 52 percent said they felt like their kids were performing at pre-pandemic levels, meaning they hadn’t improved.

Part of the reason for the dissatisfaction is the drop in opportunities to play sports. Many events have been canceled.  And restrictions have been hard on kids, said Frintzilas.

Of course, the drop in satisfaction, performance and mental health hurt kids’ confidence in sports, he said. But sports can help kids boost their confidence as sports returns to normal.

As parents look toward the spring season, they should focus first of all at ensuring their kids are having fun, said Frintzilas. Parents should actively participate in youth sports by watching games and helping the team, he said.

Parents should also focus on reducing the screen time that increased during the pandemic. In addition, they should encourage kids to get back in sports. More than 60 percent of parents said that decreased sports participation during the pandemic led to increased screen time.

A number of mental game strategies will also help kids whose confidence and performance were undermined by the pandemic.

Parents can ensure their young athletes’ expectations aren’t too high, because this can lead to frustration if they don’t meet their lofty expectations. In addition, help young athletes  replace negative self-talk– “I can’t” statements–with more positive self-talk, including “I can” statements.

What’s more, parents can ensure their young athletes plan well for games or performances. That means they need to eat well before performances and ensure they have proper equipment. 

And young athletes can put together a list of mini-goals they’d like to achieve during games or performances. These goals will help them focus on the moment, rather than on the score or win.

Source

Published on

MARCH 2, 2022 By Patrick Cohn