The Ideal Player As A Footballer: Arsenal's Mental Disease (Habitual Lapses Of Concentration)

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: Arsenal's Mental Disease (Habitual Lapses of Concentration) written by Chuka Okonkwo & Dubem Okonkwo


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: Arsenal's Mental Disease (Habitual Lapses of Concentration) "Unless every player resolves to personally develop and strengthen his power of concentration...the team will continue to suffer the results of lapses of concentration." Lapses of Concentration: The Arsenal Football Team (March 2011) The Ideal Player As Footballer agrees with the view of The Tw↑ns: Env↑ronMENTAL Training that Arsenal's mental disease, or habitual lapses of concentration, is a disease that has afflicted Arsenal players periodically for many years. And Arsenal aren't the only Premier League team afflicted with this mental problem on the pitch. Too many players are mentally unfit to play in games. Their attitude is incorrect; they lack focus and do not appear to have done anything during the week to develop their power to concentrate. The Ideal Player As A Footballer knows the importance of remaining focussed for the full 90 or in some cases 120 minutes of a game, and takes daily steps to ensure that his concentration never wavers. Alas, this is not the case with many Premier League players. He agrees with The Tw↑ns: Env↑ronMENTAL Training view that players talk too much before a match. They drain their mental energy with empty platitudes and useless tub thumping, instead of taking the necessary steps to steady wavering attentions and focussing on the roles they have to play. Minds that know how to concentrate know the importance of conserving mental energy. Since mental energy, mental focus, mental power are key to a successful game. Without them not even the most talented squad can expect to accomplish much.


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer feels that there are too many sport psychologists deceiving athletes into absorbing techniques that fail to address the important issue of developing and improving the power of concentration. Look at any Premier League match and observe the number of players falling to the ground at the merest contact. Players are programmed to go to ground in the penalty area rather than to score in open play. Next time you watch a game see the number of players who tumble to the ground and look towards the referee. Doesn't this remind one of the way a mollycoddled infant, learning to walk, behaves whenever it falls over? (We shan't mention its loud cries in order to draw sympathy from an overanxious guardian.) Now compare this to the confident infant who falls over, but immediately picks itself up and keeps going. No tears, no squealing, no attention seeking, just determination to accomplish the goal of learning to walk. The Ideal Player As A Footballer realises the importance of fine tuning his powers of concentration by performing boring mental exercises. (No easy just-lie-back-on-the-couch therapy for him. As for away day bonding trips to sweltering Dubai. No comment.) The regular practice of boring mental games is why you will never see him lose his focus on the field. He knows the benefit of disciplining the mind to undergo challenging and distasteful tasks. Alas, too many Premier League players lack this important attribute: a willingness to roll up their sleeves and do more or go that extra mile with their training. The Ideal Player As A Footballer has little time for the sport psychologists plying their trade in the football arena, let alone their methods. He stops short of referring to most of them as charlatans or mountebanks with their questionable methods that are a few paces short of fraudulent. He trains his own mind and will continue to do so, selecting mental training regimes from various disciplines. Training methods that ensure he is always mentally fit during a match.


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Below are some of the qualities or characteristics he expects to personally display in every match. (1) Full alertness: focus and concentration (2) Sharp attention (3) Calmness (4) Strong powers of observation (5) Quick mental reactions (6) An incredible work ethic The reader will notice the absence of positive thinking, belief and confidence from the above list. In his opinion, a player who has worked on the six points will naturally exude confidence, belief and positive thinking in every game. Just as the player who has worked on his technique and stamina during training can expect to cope with the physical demands of any game. He doesn't know the meaning of a quiet game. On the pitch a game of football is more than just a chess game. It is a physical battle, but the wits must still be present from start to finish. You will never ever see The Ideal Player diving or feigning injury. You will never see him selecting to fall inside the penalty area in the hope of being rewarded with a penalty rather than going for goal. He knows the importance of setting a good example - not only to watching youngsters aspiring to become footballers - but to his subconscious mind. Recognising that the subconscious mind is the seat of all habits, good and bad, he practises behaviour that is beneficial to his career. The thought of preventing himself from attempting to score a goal and, instead, penalty seeking is repugnant to him. Sorry all you divers and simulators plying your trade this weekend. Don't let his opinion stop you from continuing to spend precious minutes of a game seeking to con the referee with your 'shouts for a penalty'.


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer advises any player who honestly wants to discipline their mind to read 'The 2010 World Cup South Africa: England's Preparations' by The Tw↑ns: Env↑ronMENTAL Training and to pay close attention to the 11 examples of distractions and lapses of concentration on page 3 of the report. The 2010 World Cup South Africa: England's Preparations http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fullscreen/26979209/2 His advise to players is to sort out their own heads. Since coaches appear unable to prevent, or in some cases actually encourage cowardice from their players in the penalty box, it is for players to seek other techniques to bring out courage, boldness and heroism when they find themselves in the penalty area. 1. Why fall over because your heels have barely been caressed? 2. Do you really lose your balance that easily? 3. Do you really think that you have a better chance of scoring from the penalty spot than if you stay upright and attempt to find the back of the net? 4. Which matters most to you? a) That you had 'a shout for a penalty', (Are you reading this Match Of The Day pundits?)


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or (b) That despite attempts to foul you, you evaded or eluded your opponent and stuck the ball in the back of the net. 5.) Aren't you embarrassed to see your thespian role analysed on Match of The Day 2? If crashing to the earth in a heap is what you were taught at the academy as a youth, or if that is the current philosophy of your FA badge carrying coach, you have been or are being deceived. Abandon this bad habit before you ruin your game. That is if you really care for the game, and are playing as an honest athlete determined to reach the very top and join the elite. If you're part of the elite already, then you shouldn't be soiling your reputation with such behaviour. It is definitely a habit to eradicate from your game. Unless you feel you need it for some 'special' reason. Do you? Bad habits are easily formed; good habits are not. It is because we humans are the sum total of acquired habits that The Ideal Player As A Footballer has always taken care to ensure that he programmes his subconscious mind correctly. Any footballer - it doesn't matter whether he has a cupboard full of winners medals in his home - who selects to fall to the ground without striving his utmost to remain on his feet is not doing himself any favours. Yes, he will probably get that deserved 'shout for a penalty' - are you reading this BBC pundits?- but he does himself little good. Every time he goes down he is instructing his subconscious mind in that habit. He is telling his mind that he doesn't have the confidence to score a goal. He is forming the habit of going down in a heap every time he meets a challenge. Please don't try to con the intelligent that the tug on your shirt, the arm around your waist, the leg in your path, or that rough challenge prevented you from scoring a goal. It didn't. Your mind has been hypnotised into accepting that it is better to topple over at the slightest challenge and claim a penalty as a reward


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than to defy your opponent's intentions (foul or fair), and score a goal. The Ideal Player As A Footballer believes that it is better to stay on your feet even if your attempt to score fails than to reduce yourself to this level. He doesn't care what instructions you have received over the years from coaches in training. Are you keen to develop your mind so that it can focus for every moment of a game or are you keener to master the art of simulation? The Ideal Player As A Footballer believes that players, who are not interested in practising the various forms of professional fouls, should set out to improve and develop their powers of concentration. Such an approach will serve their careers better than if they learn the tricks of the game that one Premier League captain alluded to during the recent furore over footballers trying to influence the referee (instead of remaining focussed on trying to win the game). Players who are disciplined enough to train themselves to concentrate better would find an improvement in their overall performance (on a regular basis), and fans would be treated to less of that mad rush of blood to the head experienced by Arsenal players in the first leg of their Champions League home game against Monaco on 25 February 2015. It waits to be seen whether coaches will return to the drawing board and study why their players lose concentration during matches, or whether players will take it upon themselves to develop and improve their powers of concentration by seeking alternative techniques. Proper techniques that really improve focus and attention, not the quick fix mantras or positive thinking models being touted around these days. Liverpool's mental implosion near the end of the 2013/2014 season should act as a warning to any player who thinks that reclining on a couch or undergoing a course of hypnotherapy is the best way to train one's mind. It isn't. It may help to calm the jitters, but it is no substitute for intensive mental exercises which improve and develop concentration. The Ideal Player As A Footballer is perplexed by the latest post-match sentiments echoed by the Arsenal manager. For a club famed for the psychological impact it has on its players to allow the current squad to publicly hear (it implied) that its opponents didn't deserve to go through to the last eight, makes one wonder about the type of psychology that supports such a view.


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Arsenal players and every Premier League player should visit the link below and study the contents of the famous sheet. They should take the time to dwell on the meaning of the various sentences and ask themselves whether their conduct and attitude week in and week out displays anything close to what is promoted in that famous text. Arsenal motivational sheet http://www.onlinearsenal.com/showthread.php?14640-Arsenal-motivational-sheet The Ideal Player As A Footballer believes that without an ability to concentrate week in and week out, it will be impossible to carry out a single line of that text, irrespective of whether your team's colour is red, blue, white, green, yellow, or black. It matters not how gifted or talented you think you are as a player. The text (in any language) will be a mere string of words, grammatically correct, obeying the rules of syntax, but having as much meaning as Cretan hieroglyphs. The meaning, being lost or not fully understood, cannot be emblazoned on the heart or fixed in the mind. Each player has to decide for himself if he is going to take the necessary steps to improve his power to concentrate, not only for himself but for the success of the team, or whether he will continue to vainly assure himself that he is great because of his market value, or to blame circumstances of all descriptions for his failings. Until players are honest about their mental disease -lapses of concentration - managers will continue to endure the pain and frustration of losing matches that could or should have easily been won had the concentration and focus been there. There is no disgrace in losing a match or being eliminated from a competition if you have given your very best. After all, in the latter case, there can only be one winner. However, losing or habitual elimination due to lapses of concentration is a sign of a mental disease requiring immediate treatment.


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“Each well-born soul must win what it deserves. Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, Whose slightest action or inaction serve. The one great aim. Why, even Death stands still, And waits an hour sometimes for such a will." Ella Wheeler Wilcox Further reading: Lapses of Concentration: Arsenal Football Team http://www.slideshare.net/ChukaDubemTheTwinsOk/lapses-of-concentration-the-arsenal-football-team-43439777 LeBron James's work ethic http://www.businessinsider.com/lebron-work-ethic-2014-7?op=1&IR=T Chelsea 'could not cope mentally' http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31844562 Chelsea lose ugly in European exit by Phil McNulty - Chief football writer, BBC Sport http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31845015 Change away goals rule, says Wenger http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31958105 Monaco not worthy winners - Wenger http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31936064 'The Follow-up: The Next Step To Take' http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fullscreen/27138410/1

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: Arsenal's Mental Disease (Habitual Lapses Of Concentration)