The years will pass but it is inevitable not to feel a sense of sadness every time I see a photo of Valentino Mazzola or another footballer of that legendary Torino. In this one, he is tying the shoes of his 4-year-old son Sandro.
Monthly Archive for July, 2021
Page 2 of 3
Fondamenti di psicologia dello sport
Alberto Cei
Il Mulino, settembre 2021, p.296
La psicologia dello sport è una disciplina che ha acquisito sempre più interesse negli ultimi anni e ha saputo ritagliarsi un suo spazio autonomo all’interno della psicologia e delle scienze dello sport e del loro insegnamento. I principali temi che affronta questa materia riguardano otto grandi aree: i processi cognitivi coinvolti nel controllo motorio e nella prestazione sportiva; le abilità psicologiche implicate nei diversi tipi di discipline; i processi motivazionali; il ruolo dell’allenatore e dell’organizzazione dell’allenamento; i programmi sportivi per l’infanzia; il benessere e la salute; le abilità interpersonali e le dinamiche di gruppo; i processi di autoregolazione, i livelli di attivazione e i sistemi per affrontare lo stress agonistico. In questo libro, l’autore illustra le conoscenze che la psicologia dello sport ha acquisito in queste aree principali e fornisce un panorama esaustivo in grado di soddisfare docenti, studenti e quanti sono interessati o vogliono avvicinarsi a questa disciplina.
Indice del volume: Introduzione. – I. I processi motivazionali nello sport. – II. Sport e personalità. – III. Processi di autoregolazione e livelli di attivazione. – IV. L’attenzione: dalla teoria all’applicazione. – V. Dinamiche di gruppo. – Riferimenti bibliografici. – Indice analitico.
The Olympics have always oscillated between two opposites. On the one hand, they are a celebration of peace among peoples. It is no coincidence that they have often been a means of pressure and political claim, used by both nations and individual athletes. Sport is not neutral, it is not true that the important thing is to participate, nations use sport to affirm their vision of the world. This is absolutely acceptable as long as the rights of all are respected. Our culture of Olympic sports has its roots in classical Greece for which sport was next to other forms of development of people. At the same time, for every athlete, the Olympics represent the most important opportunity to affirm their value on a global level, it is the greatest showcase to which an athlete can aspire. On the other hand, the Olympics, along with the World Cup and the Tour de France, are the world’s top sporting events. The Tokyo Olympics will represent something different from previous ones.
Meanwhile, the athletes come from a year of pandemic, a year without competitions and for some sports there have been few opportunities to qualify (table tennis for example has had in 2021 only two qualifying tournaments). In some ways the selection of participants has been unfair and many of those excluded are already preparing for the upcoming Paris 2024 which is only a little over two years away. Secondly, the restrictions imposed by Japan during the stay in Tokyo will be very strict and therefore there will be no interviews and press conferences before and after the competitions and this certainly penalizes the sports and athletes with less visibility during the quadrennium. Finally, there will be no audience and we have all experienced its absence during the soccer championship. The lack of fans will be an aspect that could negatively affect many performances, selling out the enthusiasm that the public obviously determines. In a few days we will know what will happen, however, it remains true that most of the athletes / despite these differences will be focused on providing the performance of their lives.
How difficult is it to become a junior athlete at the international level?
In opposition sports where you fight directly against another opponent it is very difficult, because beyond the sporting skills and the physical skills, the mental element is what determines success.
By this I do not mean that there is a mental prevalence over the other two components, but that without mental guidance and with a reduced degree of agonism it will not be possible for the athlete to express his sporting and motor skills.
In opposition sports speed and precision are two inseparable aspects of performance. It is clear that those who train to combine these two characteristics together run a greater risk of making mistakes, but another option is not possible. If you slow down too much you become predictable and the lack of precision means that you’ll throw shots randomly.
Training on these two aspects, also involves working mentally to maintain a high level of confidence even if at first you will make more mistakes. Maintaining a high level of confidence, however, will allow you to persevere with this type of training and, recover quickly from mistakes and compete with greater conviction.
Many people today are quoting the words that Roberto Mancini said to the team before the final against England: “We are the masters of our destiny”.
The comments called them emotional words, true because it is precisely this kind of awareness that too often determines catastrophic emotional responses.
This awareness resonates within every person at crucial moments in their lives. It is a concept that reveals the extent to which an individual wants to be self-determining and autonomous in their decisions. They are the basis of self-determination theory, which states that people accomplish their goals precisely because they know they will improve through their efforts.
There is a but that often hinders one’s affirmation, it consists in knowing that even if one provides the best performance of which one is capable, the final result is still not guaranteed. In other words, you have to do your best in the knowledge that you can still lose a soccer match or, in life, not get what you have worked for. Because there are also others, there is the difficulty of the task and sometimes you need a bit of luck as well.
Not all people are willing to commit to taking these risks and, therefore, reduce their involvement in what they do or behave impulsively, acting without thinking, while others become overly analytical, asking too many questions and slowing down their action.
People who don’t accept this challenge choose to take refuge in the comforting idea that they failed because they didn’t try hard enough. It’s a way of not inflicting self-esteem.
Today will be an unforgettable day for Italian sport, the Wimbledon and Wembley finals are coming up. Two of the most iconic venues in world sport, where Italian athletes will be protagonists.
Those who have achieved these goals, Matteo Berrettini and the national soccer team, have faced a difficult path that they have reached not only thanks to their sport skills but also by virtue of their ability to accept the difficulties they were faced with and to know how to win them. They are an example of what Rudyard Kipling wrote, in the poem If, of which two significant lines are written at the entrance of the central court of Wembley: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same”.
In a few words, Kipling was able to summarize the deepest meaning of sport, represented by the challenge with oneself, the anxiety that this causes and the ability to overcome this psychological condition to achieve victory.
Every young athlete, coach and parent should remember these ideas and understand how difficult the challenge experienced by athletes is. Take care of our talents.
It is difficult to talk about a summer camp for young people with intellectual disabilities with medium to severe disorders such as those we ended after three weeks of activity. The difficulty lies mainly in the fact that the activity was carried out on a 1 to 1 basis, which means that each young person was followed by an operator, who could be a psychologist or a coach. For them, as for those with a better level of functioning, the sports activity was alternated with the expressive activity for a total duration of 5 consecutive hours.
The sporting activity took place in a field of 5 soccer fields structured with a sequence of motor stations so that everyone was active at the same time without waiting. This allowed each child to be able to carry out the activity at their own pace, thus allowing them to take breaks according to their tiredness and their motivation to continue.
Having much more time available to carry out the activity, compared to the usual duration of the training of 60 minutes, has allowed everyone to take rather long breaks of 15/20 minutes while continuing to stay on the field and then resume it having a time available of 5 hours. This aspect also had a positive effect on the coaches who worked in the awareness of not having to urge the youngster to do the activity, as can happen during when the training time is much shorter.
It must also be said that each week the participants were active for 5 hours a day for a total of 25 hours, which in quantitative terms is equivalent to 3 months of training for two hours a week. Furthermore, these more limited functioning boys/girls are unlikely to come every workout, so it is not hard to imagine that for many this weekly number may have equated to 4 months of training.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that some of them have improved a lot even in just one week, which for them represented a completely new life experience, with an unknown personal involvement. This result was often reiterated by the parents who would have liked to continue this kind of activity for other weeks. The camp was also extended to their brothers and sisters. Not only did this allow the family to relieve themselves of the problem of their placement during this time in other summer leaders, but the games they played together enhanced their awareness that other families also have children like their brothers/sisters with disabilities. They discovered that there are activities that can be done together, that their siblings improve if they do an organized activity with others their age. In other words, an idea of everyday normalcy is spread among them that can exist if you are in a non-exclusive but interacting context.
The environments they usually attend are not organized in this way, but our summer camp demonstrates how it is possible to promote integration, without it becoming a pitiful activity or one of fake inclusion, in which the only element that unites is the condition of the same physical environment but which creates exclusion for the content practiced.
To illustrate what is happening in these days during the European Football Championship, where the importance of teamwork is constantly being proposed, I want to recall a story reported by Pat Riley, at the time coach of the Los Angeles Laker about Magic Johnson.
“When he played for the Los Angeles Lakers he stood out not only because he was a champion, but also because of his total dedication to the team game: he passed and defended instead of thinking only about making a basket. It was the player himself who told Riley how this collaborative attitude towards the team had become established in him. When he was playing at the youth league level his coach had told him that he was the biggest, best player on the team and that he should shoot all the time. He did so, he scored most of the baskets of the team that so won every time. In spite of these victories the other teammates felt incapable, they were depressed and nobody thanked him or was happy for what he did. He decided that this situation was unbearable for him. From that moment his behavior on the field changed and he put his skills at the service of the team. The team’s mood changed completely, the teammates were much more motivated, they increased their skills and continued to win.” (from Cei, 1998).
If I had to choose the key words of this European Football Championship I would say that they are: enthusiasm, belief and commitment of all.
We read, in fact, that the English team have slammed against the Danish rock, and the English themselves in turn sing “Football is coming home”.
Spain with its passes that always involve the whole team and Luis Enrique who says: “I am happy with what I have seen and proud of my boys, in the final I will be rooting for Italy, impossible not to love it”. The enthusiasm and solidity of the Italian group is evident in the game, there are certainly players of great quality but this is always used to develop a common idea and not the individualism of some.
Championships are won with goals in the last 15 minutes and Italy-Spain also confirmed this script. Morata scored the equalizing goal in the 81st minute.
Physical tiredness and mental stress are the cause of these results. Determination and team aggressiveness are the factors that allow even in extra time to lead the game that has been prepared. It will also take luck, as always, but the basis is that Chiellini’s determination is transmitted to the whole team.
Penalties. First there’s the pathos of everyone supporting the goalie, then the even the two opposing goalies embrace. And then there is only the loneliness of the penalty taker.
At the end we go to the final!!!!
What should we expect this evening from Italy against Spain?
The definitive confirmation of the importance of team cohesion. This match will be important not only for the obvious relevance of the victory, but for the history of these years that has led to this decisive match for the entrance into the final of the European championship.
It is useless to pretend nothing happened, we play to win and Italy is used to obtaining this result through the choral work of the single players. In these hours, the competitive tension grows and it can be governed by believing in the power of the team, from which comes the effective shot and the decisive save.
The moments in our favor are built, as we have seen in previous games, through the commitment of all and this will allow the manifestation of those actions of individuals that should lead to a final winning result for us.
