Football’s psychological evolution is gathering pace despite a ‘culture of conservatism’
Football’s psychological evolution is gathering pace despite a ‘culture of conservatism’: “In the future, every player will have their own psychologist.”
Davide Ancelotti’s words are dealt with and delivered with care, in trademark family fashion. They give a hint about a personal journey that began with his father almost 20 years ago.
They also show how demands and resources thrown at contemporary elite players are intensifying the focus on the game’s mental side.
Ancelotti was an assistant coach at Real Madrid. His father Carlo was appointed manager at that time. The 33-year-old had managerial ambitions of his own. He was among a new generation who looked at the field of science for ways to improve their teams.
Premier League club’s sports science department goes on to ‘psychologically coded’ players to record confidence, focus, and motivation levels.
But there stands an opposing force at play. An expert describes it as a “traditional culture of conservatism” behind the “risk-averse” attitude and “taboos” that permeate football.
AC Milan’s Milanello training ground is in the northern Italian city. As a young midfielder there between 2007 and 2009, Ancelotti used to spend time in its ‘Mind Room’. It is an innovative psychology laboratory to underpin an unprecedented run of success over 23 years.
It sparked and scintillated an interest in the subject that was dormant.
Ancelotti studied sports science after seeking retirement from his playing career. He focused on coaching, picking up a commendation for his university thesis on players’ motor skills. Ahead of working at Madrid, he remained with his father in coaching roles at Bayern Munich, Napoli, and Everton.
The pair sporadically implemented and executed psychology and player welfare initiatives.
“In the past, we’ve tried to have someone come in that the players didn’t know was a psychologist, just to watch and produce reports for us,” he says.
“It was more for the staff because I think coaches need to have an understanding of psychology. We have to know how to approach players and communicate with them, whether it is a good moment to talk or not to talk.”
“But at Madrid now, we have players with their own psychologists. Mental health and psychology are spoken about a lot more in society now, so the young players have a better understanding of them.”
“I think it is something that must be specific to each individual: I do not think you should have one psychologist for the whole squad.”
Ancelotti’s view has been interesting. There is a rising number of teams who are employing psychologists to work with entire first-team squads.
Premier League clubs have started using specialists trained in supporting players’ confidence and focus. For identifying mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, specialists are appointed.
A psychologist is helping a first-team member returning from a long layoff to overcome the fear of re-injury.
But Geir Jordet believes that things are changing. He is a psychology professor who has spent more than 15 years advising leading European clubs.
Jordet states that a number of top-level players use virtual reality technology. This technology recreates thousands of in-game situations taken from ‘real-life’ elite matches. It successfully monitors a user’s response in order to improve the timing. It monitors the frequency of their ‘scanning’.
More than 250 elite players are analyzed. Jordet’s team’s studies have shown that scanning has a small, but great impact on performance.
Players have an interest in physical data, ranging from top speed to distance covered during a game. The technology firmly establishes measurements such as scanning timing and frequency.
Harkness was part of Chelsea’s backroom set-up for a period of four years. He used to work in partnership with his father Tim. Tim is Chelsea’s head of sports science. He was responsible for ‘psychologically coding’ the London club’s games between 2018 and 2020.
Recording ‘actions’ were taken by both Chelsea’s first team and the opposition. Harkness used a simple criterion to determine the extent to which each ‘action’ displayed confidence, motivation, or focus.
“For the last few decades, you have had loads of statistics, measuring possession, a number of passes, and a number of shots. But I do not think anyone had really looked too much into the number of psychological actions,” Harkness informed The Football Psychology Show.
“When you code between 10 and 20 games, you start to see a lot of patterns emerging and get some really interesting insights into the players.”
Harkness accepts and acknowledges that the system relies on subjective criteria which can overlap.
“Before he left, Eden Hazard broke the charts every time,” says Harkness.
“In every game he played, he made everyone else look like they had done nothing for the whole 90 minutes.”
While the Belgian’s brilliance was easy to define during his time with Chelsea, the program produced further findings.
Harkness explains: “Callum [Hudson-Odoi] would come off the bench and be very effective: he would come in with a lot of confidence, drive the intensity of the game and give confidence to the other players.”
“With N’Golo Kante, we would see a lot of focused actions, such as anticipating and intercepting a pass. It looked as though he was just in the right place at the right time, but he was concentrating so hard.”
“Christian Pulisic would record a lot of motivated actions through pressing. He’s a very fit guy and he would use that to put pressure on the defense and drive the whole press of the team. He would go to the right-back, then the center-back, then the goalkeeper and end up on the other side of the pitch.”
“That shows motivation because he does not have to do that, but he does.”
“Petr Cech was very involved in the project [as technical and performance adviser]. And I think he found a lot of value in the data we gave,” he says.
“Working at a top-level club like Chelsea, it is sometimes tricky to get your say. You do not want to act like you have got the most important information because you have still got a whole analysis team, GPS data, and the medical department to think about. But that is just part of the challenge of working for a big club.”
“Like the GPS data, in the future, I think there might be a lot of value in a player – who is interested in it – looking through the (psychological coding) data. And maybe seeing where he is not getting as many actions as another player in the same position or he is getting a lot more.”
If Harkness is proved right, players’ post-training routines can involve a quick look at an image of their brain.
RC Lens’ academy trialed brain scanning technology recently. The trial was designed to identify neural activity associated with conditions.
Players were asked to wear a headset, and complete with 18 sensors. These 18 sensors record electrical signals produced by the body. Within six minutes, the information creates an image of the brain that is cross-referenced against a baseline scan. This enables players to detect the emergence of ‘biomarkers’ associated with conditions such as sleep deprivation.
Antony Branco-Lopes is a neuropsychologist by profession. He is the co-founder of Spectre Biotech. His company works with Lens. He claims that football clubs are generally risk-averse to assessing the merits of cognitive technology.
“They know the problems with mental health and enhancing performance, and they talk a lot about it, but when it comes to really doing something, they are a bit afraid,” says Branco-Lopes.
“With e-sport and motorsport, we do not have these issues. They see the value [in what we do] and measure everything. But in football, I do not think this is the case.”
Jordet co-founded the ‘Be Your Best’ virtual reality training platform. This platform was used by Hoffenheim and the German Football Federation.
“In my career in football, I’ve never seen experienced coaches so into research and methodology as when they discussed this [the virtual reality training],” says Jordet.
“They would never ask the same type of questions with respect to exercises they will do every day in training, which have no empirical documentation whatsoever because they have been used for so many years and they’re just part of football.”
“But if you come in with new technology, then suddenly old-school football coaches become academics.”
“Football, to me, has a traditional culture of conservatism, a skeptical attitude to new things, new methods, and new innovations that’s more prevalent than in other sports.”
Ancelotti finds this a case of evolution by force. In his opinion, football has no choice but to change. There is an increasing demand for psychological support from the players.
“When I was playing, often the perception of a therapist was not of someone that could help you to perform better or better manage people,” he revealed.
“Even today, some parts of the football world are not that open to this aspect. I think it is about the culture we have in this sport.”
“In England, I think they are more open to talking to therapists. At Everton, we had players who suffered from anxiety. And they took care of their mental health. In other countries like Spain or Italy, it is different. There are more taboos.”
“But we must improve the way we manage people and improve the decision-making of our players because the youngsters coming through have a different mentality.”
“Society is changing and we have to adapt.”