Why mental preparation is important in sports

The importance of mental preparation in sports, whether it involves individual sports or team events, for instance, in all kinds of football, is extremely important.

An individual cannot win in an individual sports event like boxing, athletics, lawn tennis or martial art if he or she is not well prepared, mentally, for it.

The athlete or player needs to be well prepared, mentally, by his or her coach if he or she is to do well in the competition.

One of the tale-tell signs that an individual has also been well prepared, mentally, in a given sport is when such an athlete or player fights from behind to win against all odds.

We have often seen the mental strength of an athlete or player in individual sports events such as boxing, athletics, wrestling, martial arts like karate, judo and lawn tennis just to mention a few.

Mental preparation is so emphasized in sports that sports gurus say it tends to have an edge, especially when athletes or players, say, in an individual sports event have almost the same standards, in skill and physical preparedness.

Some sports experts have gone to the extent of saying that mental preparation is more demanding in individual sports events than in those that involve team events. Mental preparation is also very important in sports team events such as netball, volleyball, handball, football and rugby.

Players need to be thoroughly prepared not only in terms of skills and physicality, but also mentally, if the team is to do well. When Young Africans were preparing to take on Egypt’s Al Ahly or National, as they are also known back home, I stressed more than once, in these columns, the importance of their technical bench preparing them mentally, for the game.

My argument was that in terms of standards, Young Africans were not very much different from the Arabs when one compares the strength of the players from the goalkeeper to the 11th player on the pitch.

However, the only difference, if that was to be considered as difference, was the fact that Al Ahly may have played against tougher teams and finished and won more tournaments (Africa Club Champions eight times) than Tanzanians.

Simply put, one can say that the Arabs have had more experience in playing at the highest level of the game than Young Africans.

The importance of mental strength in winning in sports, especially at the highest level like the World Cup (WC) was recently stressed by former Liverpool winger and England international, John Barnes, when he was commenting on Africa’s participation and African national soccer teams’ chances in the forthcoming World Cup to be held in Brazil in June this year.

As it would be recalled, since African national soccer teams started taking part in the World Cup in 1970s, the highest level they have reached in the tournament is quarter final which was first attained by Cameroon in 1990 when the World Cup then laconically referred to as ITALIA 90, was held in Italy and saw the then West Germany winning the trophy under Frans Bankenbauer ‘Kaiser’ as team manager.

West Germany won the trophy in the final against Diego Maradona’s Argentina through a spot kick scored by its sweeper, Andy Brehme.

West Germany was joined with the East on October 3rd 1990, after the demolition of the Berlin Wall in November 1989).

The country scored another first when Bankenbauer became the first man to win the cup as a player and manager. He first won the cup as a player when he captained West Germany during the 1974 World Cup hosted by his country in Munich, after beating the Netherlands 2-1 in final.

Other African teams which have reached the quarter finals of the World Cup are Senegal in 2006 and Ghana in 2010 when the World Cup tournament was first held in the African continent in South Africa.

According to Barnes, in terms of physicality and skills, African soccer players who have played in the World Cup are not very much different from other top soccer players from other top soccer playing nations in Europe and Latin America.

He says the only area they seem to be lacking is mental preparedness.

Indeed, if one looks critically at the first and last World Cup tournaments in which an African soccer nation was eliminated in the quarter finals, John Barnes’ argument is crystal clear.

For instance, in the Italia 90, Cameroon did everything right, in their match against England and twice led, but whenever England cancelled out Cameroon’s lead, it was always as a result of lack of concentration in defending their goal, which meant, mentally, Cameroonian players had mental lapses, a reflection of lack of mental preparation.

For instance, all goals cancelled out by English players were a result of spot kicks which stemmed from clumsy tackles most of which could be attributed to, among others, lack of experience.

For it’s important to keep in mind that unlike most of the players from top flight teams that had participated in the Italia 90, the highest European league a Cameroonian player had played during the time was below the premier league. Otherwise, most of the Cameroonian players had played in the third and fourth league, especially in the French league.

And this explains why most of them committed many clumsy fouls that one does not expect a player who has played in top European league to do.

Perhaps a team that should have done far better, by going beyond the quarter final stage, compared to Cameroon and Senegal, was Ghana during the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa.

Unlike the Cameroonian team during the Italia 90, a number of Ghanaian players were playing in top flight premier league teams in England, Italy and France.

And again, unlike Cameroon in Italia 90, Ghanaian players played more refined football, a result of the highest level of competition their players had been exposed to.

And in the quarter final match in which the Ghanaian national soccer team lost to Uruguay, again, it was the same case of lack of mental preparedness for the game.

Attilio Tagalile is a journalist/author and can be reached at [email protected] 0754279655