The Mind Room

By: John Nassoori
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  • Sport psychology insight informing people passionate about performance & mental health. Find out more: https://themindroom.substack.com

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    John Nassoori
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Football (Soccer)
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Episodes
  • Why coaches should be thinking about 'psycho-social' skills and characteristics

    Why coaches should be thinking about 'psycho-social' skills and characteristics
    Jan 16 2025
     ‘Players were telling us that they felt more resilient, more confident and had better communication skills, just over one season, and some of these players can be in academy systems for 10 years, so there's a lot of time to develop them.’Tom Mitchell’s words are striking. The Doncaster Rovers academy psychology lead is talking about the impact of a programme he’s spearheaded at the English League Two club, focused on harnessing ‘psycho-social’ skills and characteristics (PSCs). The terminology might sound clunky, but the theory is relatively simple. By defining, monitoring and fine-tuning a player’s mental traits, from confidence to focus, and developing skills such as communication and leadership, coaches can improve an athlete’s performance on the pitch - and help them become well-rounded people off the field of play. As James Barraclough, a sport performance consultant who has also examined the development of PSCs, puts it:  “It's not just about developing the player: it's about developing the person. “The vast majority of players in academy football aren't going to go on to play at a professional level, so it's making sure that the 95 percent or so who don't make it aren't just treated as collateral damage. “When they transition out of football and into everyday life, they can hopefully use these employability and soft skills to make the academy experience a beneficial one.”Barraclough and Mitchell’s recent research puts the theory to the test, examining the impact of a personalised approach to honing PSCs within an English football club’s academy.It’s a project which takes its cue from Mitchell’s two stints with Doncaster, the latest of which has seen him oversee the establishment of a PSC programme. Based on a set of eight ‘pillars’ - covering  commitment, communication, concentration, control and confidence (better known as the ‘five Cs’), plus resilience, self awareness, and presence - the initiative runs across the club's academy.The Mind Room is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the newsletter, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Coaches are asked to monitor players’ progress across the eight areas, providing a common language for assessing the academy intake and providing appropriate support. The programme focuses on one pillar per month (with a facet like self-awareness saved to the backend of season, when that skill might come in handy) and couples assessment with practical suggestions on how coaches can work on areas of improvement (such as ‘overloading’ a session to increase a player’s confidence).The results are encouraging, with players reporting a significant improvement across six of the eight pillars, and Mitchell has managed to circumnavigate the challenges that can come with rolling out an academy-wide programme. “It's just about speaking to stakeholders like the academy manager and the head of coaching, and reminding them that definitions of coaching effectiveness include knowledge of personal and social development,” he says.“If you look at Cote and Gilbert's 2009 coaching effectiveness model, they talk about how a coach needs those things for coaching excellence. “So I said, ‘Well, if we really want to be excellent, we should have an idea of of young people's development and we should be trying to develop those people. That gives you a little bit of leverage. “Then you just have to speak to people within clubs to see players don't often get released from academies because they can't play football, especially at the older end.“They're all excellent players, but usually the things make the difference are the psychosocial things.”Mitchell and Barraclough's latest project takes the Doncaster model a stage further, homing in on an individual’s ‘super strengths’ and potential areas for improvement - based on the observable behaviours defined in Rovers’ programme - and designing specific sessions (in which a player might be limited to a certain number of touches, for example) focused on both.The trial showed that this kind of tailored intervention can help improve a player’s ability to self-evaluate and reguate emotions, to name just two of the areas in which the programme proved effective. Whilst Mitchell and Barraclough acknowledge the time constraints and stakeholder politics that can make implementing PSC initiatives tricky, for the Leeds Beckett lecturer doing so is a point of princple:“We've got a moral responsibility to develop people and that's becoming increasingly mandated as well. “We need aftercare programs, we try and follow where players go and what they do. So there's all these good reasons to do it and at Doncaster, they're great, they're on board with that.”Questions?If you have any queries about the newsletter, get in touch by emailing mindroomenquiries@gmail.com.Previous articlesAs a Mind Room Member, you can access all of the website ...
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    30 mins
  • John Amaechi: 'Athletes are ripe for exploitation'

    John Amaechi: 'Athletes are ripe for exploitation'
    Dec 13 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com

    Claim 20% off an annual Mind Room subscription - offer expires on December 24!

    “Does anybody think that Premier League football teams are taking on psychologists who are fundamentally saying the way that your coach is treating players is dehumanizing and should stop?”

    John Amaechi’s question is simple but stirring. Are elite sports, such as English footba…
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    2 mins
  • How to setup a mental health support system in a pro sport league

    How to setup a mental health support system in a pro sport league
    Nov 29 2024
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit themindroom.substack.com

    In last week’s newsletter, I highlighted some key takeaways from my discussion with Dr. Brett Haskell, the National Women’s Soccer League’s clinical mental health and performance director. Now - for Mind Room Members only - I’m releasing the full interview.

    The podcast is an in-depth exploration of how Brett is working with NWSL clubs to setup a system s…
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    3 mins

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