engleski

Mental toughness of young football players: differences regarding their age and sports experience

Introduction: Doing sports, especially on a professional level, requires a high level of sacrifice, motivation, belief, and mental toughness. In this article, we will focus on the latter and try to explain what mental toughness is and why it is important for young athletes. Different stakeholders in sports point to mental toughness as one of the key characteristics related to an individual’s success in elite sports (Liew et al., 2019). According to Nicholls et al. (2009), developmental factors such as age and sports experience can be relevant for mental toughness. Since different studies show diverse relations among those variables, this research aimed to examine the mental toughness of young football players and determine whether players differ in mental toughness with regard to their age and sports experience. It was assumed that there were no statistically significant differences in the mental toughness of young football players with regard to players’ age and years of training. Methods: The research was conducted in 2021 in one big football club in the Republic of Croatia on a sample of 87 young football players aged between 12 and 18 (M = 14.47 ; SD = 2.15) who train football from 3 to 12 years (M = 7.99, SD = 2.01). Two questionnaires were used in the research: an online questionnaire consisting of questions on players’ age and years of training and the Cricket Mental Toughness Inventory (CMTI, Gucciardi & Gordon, 2009) adapted to football context. The overall inventory results were formed in accordance with five 3-item subscales: Affective intelligence, Desire to achieve, Resilience, Attentional control, and Self-belief, as suggested by the authors that originally designed the CMTI. The independent samples t-test was used to test two null hypotheses. Results: The results showed players’ high self-assessments on mental toughness. On the scale from 1 (false, 100% of the time) to 7 (true, 100% of the time) total average score on 15 items of the inventory was M = 5.82 (SD = 0.79 ; Min = 3.47 ; Max = 7.00). The abovementioned five subscales had mean scores from M = 5.19 (SD = 1.32) to M = 6.62 (SD = 0.73). Young athletes differed in mental toughness with regard to their age and years of training only on the subscale Resilience. Younger players (12-14 years old, N = 51, M = 5.98 ; SD = 1.02) showed greater resilience than older players (16-17 years old, N = 36 ; M = 5.49 ; SD = 1.15) (t = -2.090 ; df = 85 ; p = 0.040) and players with shorter football experience (3-7 years, N = 37 ; M = 6.12 ; SD = 0.73) showed greater resilience than those with longer football experience (8-12 years, N = 48 ; M = 5.55 ; SD = 1.22) (t = 2.496 ; df = 83 ; p = 0.015). Discussion & Conclusion: Some studies show that elite football players have a higher level of resilience than athletes in other sports, but they do not differ in resilience regarding age and sports experience (Özdemir, 2019). According to the obtained results, the age and years of young football players’ training experience are determining factors for mental toughness only in one of its five dimensions, particularly in Resilience. Younger players and those with shorter training experience probably have experienced fewer setbacks and difficulties in sports, so they expressed higher resilience, while it is often important for older players and those with longer sports experience to continuously achieve success in order to get the opportunity to engage in professional sports. Probably those among them who have encountered more setbacks and difficulties in sports expressed lower resilience. At the same time, practice also shows that older athletes are exposed to more competitiveness, pressure, and focus on sports results than the younger ones. Therefore, the obtained results are further discussed in the context of the importance of a differentiated coaching approach with respect to players’ age and their sports experience. Bearing that in mind, coaches can help young athletes to face difficulties more easily, overcome them, and achieve success.

age, football, years of training, resilience

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