The Ideal Player As A Footballer: How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet?

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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet? written by Chuka Okonkwo & Dubem Okonkwo


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer: How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet? "Every player who dons an Arsenal shirt should constantly ask himself what steps he has personally taken to develop and strengthen his power to concentrate." Lapses of Concentration: The Arsenal Football Team (March 2011) Selected excerpts from The Arsenal Motivation Sheet (19th September 2008) The team: "A team is as strong as the relationships within it." "The driving force of a team is its member's (sic) ability to create and maintain excellent relationships within the team that can add an extra dimension and robustness to the team dynamic" The Ideal Player as A Footballer agrees with the line 'the driving force of a team is its member's ability to create and maintain relationships." But would add the word "individual" before the word 'members'. He believes it is the individual members' ability to discipline themselves to concentrate that maintains excellent relationships. When each member sets out to train his mind, to weed out personal weaknesses, to improve every single day and to learn new things, that is what adds that extra dimension and robustness to a team. Without it a team is just a collection of talented and average players vacillating from week to week, from season to season. They turn up for training, play if and when picked, but never attain anything worth writing about. Individually they may be gems, but together they're not good enough to be in a crown. Certainly not a crown, worn by kings, made of many gems each shining and gleaming with sparkle and brilliance.


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A manager can only bring out what players are prepared to work for. Some managers have mastered this technique better than others. Sadly, it is the manager that suffers the fall of the axe when players fail to perform. (When manager and players both really want success -as opposed to "would like success"- success arrives.) Speak to any great manager and they will tell you that lazy, ill-disciplined, unmotivated players - no matter how gifted - are a curse rather than a blessing. When has a career progressed to the top or remained at the top where a lack of focus and concentration was prominent? "This attitude can be used by our team to focus on the gratitude and the vitally important benefits that the team brings to our own lives. It can be used to strengthen and deepen the relationships with it and maximise the opportunities that await a strong and united team." The Ideal Player As A Footballer notes that gratitude usually comes with success. If a team is constantly failing, it is difficult to feel gratitude towards the manager never mind the rest of the team. Agents will encourage a player to seek success elsewhere rather than to serve out a contract and remain to help fix the problem - constant failure. Of course there is a time to move on, to further one's career, but that should be after giving your very best. Eleven players privately finger-pointing and passing the blame does not create an atmosphere of gratitude of any kind. Gratitude grows from knowing that all your teammates are as eager as yourself to win, and are working day and night to accomplish this. Without each person learning how to concentrate, what you have is a group of players, but that is not a team of any sort. Look at players at the end of any match. Those who have played their best gravitate towards one another. Look at the body language and faces of those who know they could have and should have given more. Honest commitment is what strengthens and deepens any relationship, whether it is in training, in a game, in the boardroom or in the home. Only honest commitment can make a relationship strong and maximise opportunities that reside in such a relationship.


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"Our team becomes stronger by:" "Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch" "Everyone making the right decisions for the team" "Have an unshakeable belief that we can achieve our target" "Believe in the strength of the team" "Always want more – always give more" The Ideal Player As A Footballer feels that players who have mastered the art of concentration will naturally exude positivity on and off the pitch. Real positivity comes from a knowledge of what we do not what we say during prematch interviews or tweet during an idle moment on the team coach. Making right decisions isn't easy or simple when members of the team have lost their focus. The herd mentality takes over due to a lack of concentration and players panic. Look at the Arsenal v Monaco game on 25 February 2015 for an example of a collective rush of blood to the head. "The heart took over the head." Wenger told reporters in the post-match interview. An unshakeable belief in what can be achieved and in the strength of the team cannot be plucked from thin air. It is what we do not say that displays our belief to the world. If players don't train themselves to concentrate, then any talk of belief is wishful thinking. What is there to believe? That the fifty-year old away goals rule should be scrapped because two English clubs have exited before the quarter-finals as a result of it. Or that eleven men (the guys in blue) can't cope with the pressure of playing at home against ten men for over ninety minutes. At least the manager of the men in blue didn't slink into the corner of excuse making. He understands that the individual players need to dig deep into their own heads to discover why they bottled it. The manager responsible for the the famous motivational sheet ought to emulate the actions of his rival and get his players to excavate their heads, to search for and root out the fears, doubts, anxieties and concerns that are obviously residing in hidden corners, waiting to reveal themselves at inopportune moments like the night of 25 February 2015.


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer has always believed in the maxim that if you want more you must be prepared to give more, otherwise your wanting more is merely idle daydreaming. To 'give more', time and energy have to be expended consistently. Action not mere words is what works here, and a serious player has to understand what giving more entails. "Focus on our communication" "Be demanding with yourself" "Be fresh and prepared to win" "Focus on being mentally stronger and always keep going until the end" To The Ideal Player As A Footballer, the above lines may lead a player into a state of complacency if only chanted aloud for several minutes during a team bonding session. Complacency is a problem with many players. Simply chanting the above lines will have no more effect on a player's ability than the handshake or other rituals carried out by many players before the start of a game if mental preparation has been poor. Players should think over the meaning of the words and ask (themselves) how can they improve communication with their colleagues during a game, then set out to ensure their actions match their thoughts. If the manager is going to fish around for excuses and seek scapegoats amongst the officials or opponents, 'then be demanding on yourself' should be removed from the list. Honest introspection is the way to be demanding on oneself. Is there another? Proper preparation will ensure freshness. A player who is constantly monitoring himself shouldn't require someone else to tell him that he needs to be fresh, or that he must be prepared to win. Rather than being satisfied with being prepared to win - even if it is by his coach - a player should always prepare himself so that he can win. There is a difference.


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The Ideal Player As A Footballer will tell you that to become mentally stronger as a player you have to concentrate, and that if your attention is prone to wandering during a game you will be unable to keep going. Despair, frustration, anxiety, carelessness are a few examples of inattention that prevents a player from going on till the end. So develop better powers of concentration, and mental strength and the characteristic of never giving up will naturally follow. "When we play away from home, believe in our identity and play the football we love to play at home" "Stick together" "Stay grounded and humble as a player and as a person" "Show the desire to win in all that you do" "Enjoy and contribute to all that is special about being in a team – don't take it for granted." The Ideal Player As A Footballer is interested in daily improvement. To his mind, one's identity is the ideal to uphold. If you are prepared to abandon your identity and adopt the cynical practices of your opponents, or believe that their successes and your failures are due to such and such practices, you do yourself a disservice and make a mockery of your much-vaunted identity. Think carefully the next time you utter the words that you must be prepared to win ugly. Is winning ugly an identity worthy of upholding? Sticking or pretending to stick together when your teammates aren't playing for the glory of the club is a dishonest practice and serves no purpose. Focussed and concentrated minds will stick together naturally; no coercion will be needed. Look at any team and you will see that it is a successful attitude that binds them together. A successful attitude will bring success to a team irrespective of talent. Too much is made of talent and not enough of hard work and industry. No wonder many talented players delude themselves that lacing up their boots and donning the first team shirt is all that is required for success.


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When we seek to achieve more and are not complacent about current successes, or vain when our performance is well below our usual high standards, when we seek to achieve greatness and to beat elite opponents, not celebrating the fact that we've been drawn easy opponents, we are in a position to be grounded and humble. It is greatness that should encourage humility; for humility does not breed greatness. Can a humble cottage become a stately mansion? The Ideal Player As Footballer believes that a player must first have something to be humble about. Humbling as an experience as it may be, being humbled by an opponent doesn't count. Without the desire to focus and concentrate at all times, whether you're training or playing in a match, you cannot have that winning mentality. You cannot turn it off and on like a light switch. Like the sun it has to burn in your soul throughout your career. It is not only what you do that shows desire, it is the way you think and what you think. This is where many players let themselves down. They expect to be successful in the Champions League, yet at the same time wish or pray for easy draws. What kind of desire is that? One cannot hope to be the best or be seen as the best whilst hoping to avoid facing or meeting the best. When every player plays their part honestly and realises that it's a privilege and an honour to play for the club not a right, then the ideas of enjoying and contributing and not taking things for granted can be faithfully followed. The Ideal Player As A Footballer wonders how many players at the club have actually studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet. Does the manager still believe the tenets proclaimed so bodly at the start of the 2008/2009 campaign?


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How does a philosophy get from this? "Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch" "Everyone making the right decisions for the team." To this: "Their manager accused Arsenal of lacking patience, of failing to realise this was a tie played over 180 minutes, of chasing an equaliser with such wild indiscipline they ended up conceding another, potentially pivotal, goal." Phil McNulty - Chief football writer, BBC Sport http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31635094 Or this: "Much of this responsibility lies at the door of the manager. At the pinch points of pressure, Arsenal's players should remember Wenger's mantra. On this horrendous evidence it flies in one ear and out of the other." Phil McNulty - Chief football writer, BBC Sport http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/31635094 "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent or hinder or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it, soon or late. What obstacle can stay the mighty force Of the sea-seeking river in its course, Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?" Ella Wheeler Wilcox


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Further reading: Lapses of Concentration: The Arsenal Football Team http://www.slideshare.net/ChukaDubemTheTwinsOk/lapses-of-concentration-the-arsenal-football-team-43439777 Arsenal motivational sheet http://www.onlinearsenal.com/showthread.php?14640-Arsenal-motivational-sheet The full text of Arsène Wenger's motivational handout http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/sep/23/arsenal.premierleague3 All for one: Wenger's motivational tips revealed by David Hytner http://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/sep/23/arsenal.premierleague Arsene Wenger's blueprint for Arsenal success revealed in leaked document http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/3064653/Arsene-Wengers-blueprint-for-Arsenal-success-revealed-in-leaked-document-Football.html The Football Book by David Goldblatt (p.105) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0v8qlv61Uy8C&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&ots=btNzhAQL9X&focus=viewport&dq=The+full+text+of+Arsène+Wenger%27s+motivational+handout&output=html_text The 2010 World Cup South Africa: England's Preparations http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/fullscreen/26979209/2 '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: How Many Players Have Studied Arsenal's Motivational Sheet?