Close soccer matches and tight title fights are rarely decided by players' technical skills or their coaches' tactical measures. The most significant impetus comes from an area that is often mentioned but difficult to grasp: mental strength, personality, and team cohesion after special victories. Using current scientific knowledge and illustrated by many examples, this book describes the mental and cognitive processes that determine victory and defeat in soccer. Several interviews with well-known soccer coaches, managers and former players complement these findings from psychology and sport science. It deals with phenomena such as the home field advantage, creativity on the field, extreme emotional situations, the limits of visual perception, group dynamics and modern leadership. Well-known myths (e.g. Don't let the player who has been fouled shoot the penalty) will be discussed and debunked. Every soccer enthusiast should read this book in order to understand which phenomena can genuinely be game-changing and which ones cannot.

This text will help the reader learn the secrets of developing mental toughness, and is aimed at players at all levels, coaches and managers.

A deep look into how even the best athletes struggle with and persevere through mental illness. In growing numbers, athletes are speaking up about their struggles with mental illness—including high-profile stars such as Michael Phelps, Kevin Love, Simone Biles, and Naomi Osaka. More disclosures are surely on the way, as athletes recognize that their openness can help others and inspire those around them. In Mind Game: An Inside Look at the Mental Health Playbook of Elite Athletes, Julie Kliegman offers insight into how elite athletes navigate mental performance and mental illness—and what non-athletes can learn from them. She explores the recent mental health movement in sports, the history and practice of sport psychology, the stereotypes and stigmas that lead athletes to keep their troubles to themselves, and the ways in which injury and retirement can throw wrenches in their mental states. Kliegman also examines the impacts of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, substance use, and more, with a keen eye toward moving forward with acceptance, progress, and problem-solving. Featuring insightful interviews with Olympians Chloe Kim, McKayla Maroney, and Adam Rippon, NBA players Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, former U.S. Open tennis champ Bianca Andreescu, and many other athletes and experts, Mind Game breaks down the ongoing, heartening movement of athletes across sports coming forward to get the care they need and deserve—and to help others feel safe opening up about their struggles, as well.

Hypnosis is an invaluable tool that can quickly and effectively influence the subconscious mind and promote lasting change. This is an excellent resource for anyone currently working with athletes who wish to use hypnosis to improve performance, as well as everyone currently using hypnotherapy techniques wishing to expand into sport psychology.

Jake's involvement in Archery parallel's changes in rules and equipment to today. His life membership in the NFAA & USAA since 1984 helped his involvement as a competitor, instructor and judge in National and World Archery. People compete for awards but Archery offers so much more as a diversion to everyday life. The author, who began his foray into archery as a ten-year-old in 1951, shares photos to help you hone your effort. He also details his wide array of experiences with the National Field Archery Association, the US Archery Association, the International Field Archery Association, the US Archery Association and the World Archery Association. Plus involvement with three State Archery Association; Ohio Archers, Idaho Field Archery Association and the Georgia Bowhunter & Archery Association.

From the FIFA World Cup to pick-up games at your local park, soccer is the closest thing in our world to a universal entertainment. Many writers use this global popularity to describe the game’s winners and losers, but what happens when we use social science to explore how soccer intersects with culture, society, and the self? This book provides a thinking fan’s guide to the world’s most popular game, proposing a way of engaging soccer that sparks intellectual curiosity and employs critical consciousness. Using stories and data, along with ideas from sociology, psychology, and across the social sciences, it provides readers with new ways of understanding fanaticism, peak performance, talent development, and more. Drawing on concepts ranging from cognitive bias to globalization, it illuminates meanings of the game for players and fans while investigating impacts on our lives and communities. While it considers soccer cultures across the globe, the book also analyzes what makes U.S. soccer culture special, including its embrace of the women’s game. As a scholar, former minor league player and coach, and fan, Andrew Guest offers a distinctive perspective on soccer in society. Whatever name you call it, and whatever your interest in it, Soccer in Mind will enrich your own view of the one truly global game.

Get Your Head in the Game is the first book to tackle the issue of mental health and its relationship with the most popular sport in the world, football. Football is more than just a sport; the pitch reveals emotion in the extreme, from the glory of goals, the thrill of comradeship, the rollercoaster of club loyalty, through to the immense pressure of expectation, fear of injury, and crushing defeat. Fans, players, managers, coaches, and even those new to the sport can't help but be swept up by the drama at the heart of the beautiful game. But when players at the peak of their physical fitness commit suicide, or poor mental health derails careers, there can still be a stunned silence in the community, a lack of connection. In Get Your Head in the Game, Dominic Stevenson, a writer, player, coach, and lifelong football obsessive, interviews a diverse cross-section of characters in the football world, from fans to managers, from players at the start of their careers to retired veterans, women's football stars, international celebrities, refugee footballers and mental health professionals. Football is more than just a sport. The pitch reveals emotion in the extreme: from the glory of goals, the rollercoaster of club loyalty, through to the immense pressure of expectation, fear of injury, and crushing defeat. Fans, players, managers, coaches and even those new to the sport can't help but be swept up by the drama of the beautiful game. But when players at the peak of their physical fitness commit suicide, or poor mental health derails careers, there can still be a stunned silence in the community, a lack of connection. Dominic Stevenson, a writer, player, coach and lifelong football obsessive, interviews a diverse cross-section of characters in the football world to try to understand this lost connection between the sport and the mind. This book contains contributions from internationally renowned players such as Sam Hutchinson, Chris Kirkland, Ella Masar, John Harkes and Iffy Onoura. From voices at top clubs around the globe including Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and DC United, to the stories of smaller clubs and unsung heroes behind the scenes, Dominic reveals personal battles both on and off the pitch, touching on anxiety, depression, discrimination, trauma, identity and recovery.