Being a professional football coach and player today, we could say that it is a profession of risk. Both are a job always exposed to the maximum demand, where the results are the only thing that counts. For many managers it doesn’t matter if you play well or badly, the important thing is to win and be as high as possible. Each time it is lost then, it is considered by some to be a failure.

All the teams throughout the season suffer different streaks or levels of form, and there is always at least one negative because of injuries, calendar, lack of motivation, lack of success, etc. How must be manage that bad moments during the season?

Las 4 claves:

• The values ​​received in formative stages: We believe that this is a very key aspect during the development of the player who then pays off when he reaches his professional stage. Knowing how to accept mistakes made without looking for internal excuses, and putting the focus of attention and effort on improving them for the next time, is the key to turning that defeat into a lesson that will help you to play better next time.
• Do not give up your essence: One of the decisions that are taken very often after some defeats, is to completely change the players who play, the structure of the team in many phases of the game, including the principles and sub-principles of the game looking for a 180º turn. In many of these cases, there is no positive effect, since perhaps it is betraying the model of game and essence for which the players are prepared, or the one that the coach feels deeply and thus must transmit. Patience. Correcting mistakes is key but without ever renouncing your essence.
• Self-confidence: In bad times, negative comments received from abroad are constant. It is very common to judge from the outside without knowing what is happening. Therefore, it is very important for the coaching staff and players to maintain high levels of self-confidence. In this aspect has much to say the psychologist or sports coach, a figure that is often not contemplated but is essential because mental training, power all other structures of the player.
• The union of the group: In bad moments, the union is the shield that protects the group. To do activities inside and outside the field that promote group cohesion and assertiveness-motor among players is key. If each one makes war on their own, it is very complicated to get ahead. So it is better to have strategies prepared to strengthen the feeling of TEAM, to connect with each other emotionally by lowering the egos and row all in the same direction. Very easy to say and very complicated to do, but there are no excuses to do everything possible to get it!

To become aware of the pressure that many times a professional footballer suffers, and how he manages those bad moments, a very good example is the documentary about the football career of the legendary Steven Gerrard, entitled “Make Us Dream”.