Tag Archive for 'mondiali 2014'

No miracles in sport

Published on September 15, 2014 in Allenatori, Giovani, Mental coaching, Olimpiadi, Stress and Tiro a volo. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Sport is not an environment in which miracles can happen. I was at the Shooting World Championship with the national team of Malta and it’s exactly what happened. The shooters have provided performance at their maximum level, but there were no miracles. In the olympic trap, the shooters have achieved the best performance of the last 10 years with 118 and 117 out of 125. While the junior Maltese athlete got the 13th place out of 65 participants. In the specialty junior double trap, Nathan Xuereb has finished in 1st place in the qualification with 139 out of 150 and in the final came 4th. These results permit to explain that the journey to excellence is long and you get with improvements that are first established in training. The real chance  to reach results of the absolute level is build by high scores did in training and participating in the most of  international competitions. In these situations, the technique and mental preparation of athletes is tested, allowing them to become aware of their strengths and knowing how to engage in the most important competitive moments. For these reasons there are no miracles, but a lot of work in which technique and mind are trained together with the support of the coach and the sport psychologist.

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The endless fascination of football

Published on July 15, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The Football World Cup is concluded and once again it was the most watched show in the world along with the Summer Olympics. The reasons for the success of this sport continue to be always the same. It’s an easy sport to understand that anyone can practice and which is played everywhere, on the beach as in a park, on a street or in any open space or courtyard. It’s played at all ages from 5 years old children as well as adults, scoring just two goals with a shirt, a backpack or a stone, and the space between these two goals immediately becomes the playing field. The other team sports to be played require more technical skills and a minimum of structure as the net for volleyball or hoops in basketball. In football it does not, just that one player have the ball and immediately the game starts . These are the reasons why football has become a universal game, because all the male children have played football and when they are adults all are coaches in the Monday morning discussing with friends. All children have played at least 20-30-40 or maybe more football  and this knowledge of the game,  they believe make theim competent assessing whether a team has played well or badly. Football in the past 15 years became diffuse also among the girls and in many countries from northern Europe to north America and Japan is really widespread. These are in my opinion the reasons why soccer will continue to fascinate all for many years.

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Thoughts for the football world cup finalists

Published on July 11, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , .

My greetings to the four finalists of Football world cup.

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.” (Napoleone Bonaparte)

 

 

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Brazil’s tragedy

Published on July 10, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The defeat of Brazil and the reactions that have occurred around the world show that it was not just a football game. If you do not start from this conviction you cannot understand the pain it has caused. I have worked with athletes who lost the Olympics when it was supposed they had to win and some of them have never come back to the success, others have lived through four successive years growing inside them just an idea, that of redemption. Apparently iBrazil-Germany was a game like many others, but what it changes in these situations is the meaning of the match. It ‘s  likethe difference between making a run in the plains and do the same at the 5000m, the distance is the same but everything is different: if you’re not prepared to deal with the difficulties involved you crash to the ground after 10m. In Brazil, the entire country has stopped, the social protests broke down and all are united in supporting the team with extreme passion. Team that has melted like snow in the sun, without knowing and willing to respond to the first German goal. The sin of which are stained lies in having thought to be what they were not, it is a sin of presumption that first made ​​the coach. The second was to believe that Neymar was the leader of the team, maybe he is a champion, he definitely is not a leader. And a team with no leader cannot function rather swerves. A team without a boss can never win, because it does not know how to deal with difficult times. All this without taking into consideration the low technical level of many players. It was a losing proposition that only the emotional excitement lived by the Brazilian had managed to hide until yesterday.

It is in fact determined to Brazil around a huge halo effect of which  also the media has been victims , which it has been manifested in continuing to say that this team, certainly was not as strong as in the past, but it was still Brazil. This team reminded me instead the movie reconstructions,  from the front they look like the real ones but going back, we realize that they are cardboard constructions, and that there is nothing behind the facade. Now Brazil need a new generation of players who have not experienced in the pitch this tragedy and who wants to play for fun and to stay together, which are the best reasons to manage the emotion to play for the Brazilian knowing that the world is expecting that you always win.

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All the Brazil will play with its team

Published on July 8, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Brazil at this moment is holding its breath, everyday life has stopped all people now are waiting and in few hours they will play as the team on the pitch the match with Germany.

A friend, sport psychologist, John Salmela from Belo Horizonte where he lived for many years wrote to me yesterday:

“It is total silence here in my world in Brazil. There was no game yesterday nor today. I seems like I am in Samuel Becketts´ play, Waiting for Godot! … But life will change tomorrow with the game between Brazil and Germany in Belo Horizonte! The city has been completely electrified, welcoming and generous, but since we are off on the coast, few foreigners know about Belo, although it has 5 million inhabitants. So, as I did in the three previous games and since we live about 3 km from the Mineirão stadium, I go out in my car and pick up 4-5 fans from different countries (Iran, Costa Rica, England), and drive the  500 m from the stadium. They cannot believe what I did, and will do so tomorrow with the Germans while trying not to bring up Hitler´s name. Enjoy the Cup if you can, but you can be certain that I will be either living or dying.”

 

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In soccer the teams have to earn fortune

Published on July 2, 2014 in Allenatori, Calcio and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

According Oronzo Pugliese, football coach in the 70/80, the fortune of a team consisted in having the most talented players in the world. Brazil and Argentina won with the help of luck the two matches against Chile and Switzerland. In this case with a daring parallel with the thought of Machiavelli, it can be said that luck is the power exerted by the strongest. For this reason the fortune is not so blind as it is usual to say, the stronger catch it on themselves. But they must also to know how to earn it, not surprisingly Argentina did a lot more shots on goal than Switzerland and Brazil won at the penalties having a better goalkeeper. It’s also clear that luck occurs when the two teams did not demonstrate a clear superiority of either of the two. More than any other sport, in football the result is well suited to be influenced by luck because the score can be determined by a lightly, accomplished in a given time by the behavior of a single player. It’s ‘the case of Di Maria, one of the best in the pitch, he did a fault in a defensive action just a minute after scoring the opening goal for Argentina. From this lightness it has been developed the action that led to the pole hit by a Swiss player, punishable by a subsequent rebound on the leg that put the ball out of a few centimeters. In other words, the sin of an individual may fall heavily on the team. This is football, a sport in which you can win for the action of a single but just as easily a single behavior may lead to defeat. Therefore, in a game that is spread across many individual episodes, to attribute the result to the luck does not make sense; usually the match has won by the team that created most episodes to score, at the opponents remain the poles taken, emphasizing their competitiveness in the field but not the consitency in the pursuit of victory with the heart and the mind. Read it also on The Huffington Post.

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The reasons I watch the Football World Cup

Published on June 30, 2014 in Calcio. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Football is a simple game, tribal, the players chase a ball that is the weapon with which to strike the prey that is the goal. It’s a sport that everyone, at least among males, played as children: To have had direct experience allows everyone to understand how difficult it is to send the ball where you want. Teams like if they are combative, if they run and  if at least someone is so good as to make us stand in awe for his play. It’s a game where the goal is a rare event, you do not win 87 – 65 as in basketball, in fact, 1-0, the final score more frequently. For this reason, luck plays an sometimes an important role, as in Brazil-Chile, in which Chile has taken a post of a few minutes from the end and similarly lost on penalties; two posts have eliminated Chile. An inch to the left and the result would have been different. On the other hand, in sport you win and you lose to an inch and this is also a football unwritten rule. We like football also because  the most of us over the age of 40 reminds us when every spare moment was an opportunity to play it: at school during the interval with the eraser or with paper balls, in the backyard , oratory, making the doors to the gardens with the coat. Football is in our memories: from Grande Torino, Rivera and Mazzola, to Italy and Brazil in 1970, won the World Cup in Spain and Germany, Paolo Rossi and Schillaci, and much more depending on the team we are /were fans and of course there are also the scandals which continue to ruin it. Football is all these things and why I will continue to watch the World Cup games

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Biting to win: learning from Suarez

Published on June 25, 2014 in Calcio, Giovani and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The Suarez bite to  Chiellini is the reaction of those who is frustrated to satisfy his needs as a player and as the only reaction is the physical injury to the opponent. Suarez is in good company, along with Zidane and Cantona in football and Tyson in boxing, belongs to that small number of sport champions who cannot manage their emotions during times of increased competitive pressure. Their response is primordial, archaic, they have not made a simple foul of retaliation, such as the one that claimed the expulsion of Marchisio. They accomplished a rather primitive foul; bite the shoulder, or with the head knock down the opponent without the ball or kick during the game … one fan. The way to overcome these situations is to not live other moments of high tension, but if you’re a player you cannot. For them it’s easy to understand, because we are talking about champions but to control the behaviors, stopping the impulsive reactions is not easy. For them, it’s usual to cope with the obstacles in the satisfaction of their own needs and be able to deal with. But what does the mind say in those moments? It tells him sadly “go and shoot because otherwise you’ll be to succumb and only if you are hard, others will respect you.” They have been hildren whose parents were absents or authoritarians but knowing it does not help, you need instead to recognize that now you are an adult responsible for your reactions, and that whatever the education received is now time to take responsibility for these actions. Suarez has been banned for 10 days for a bite to an opponent and he even went to a psychologist but it was not enough. It does not help to change the being overpaid and being accepted because in any case you scored a lot of goals, but you forget the person to favor the player. How many goals worth a bite, a behavior that is anti sport behavior? Is this the champion style we want to educate our child?

Read it also on: L’HuffingtonPost

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The losing attitude of Italy

Published on June 21, 2014 in Allenatori, Calcio and Generale. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

In football, the goal is a rare event and as such can be achieved at any time, at the first or the last minute as ever. For this reason it is necessary to be aggressive, determined, motivated and united as a team, to do what it takes to score a goal. Italy yesterday did not show this attitude and it’s not enough to hope in Buffon and in the inventions of Pirlo for Balotelli. Costa Rica is a team that believed instead, in the result to remember for a lifetime: to beat Italy. We too have a dream like Pirlo said and that is to win the world cup, but to reach it we have to fight every game independently from the opponents.’This is the attitude that Garcia and Conte have taught their teams, Roma and Juventus, and that’s what was missing yesterday to our team. Falling 11 times in the offside trap means not being focused as much as was necessary. To say that you cannot expect a gwhen you are on goal if you enter in the match for only 20 minutes, it means not to have realized that instead this is what is asked of you, otherwise the coach would put in another player. To take a booking because you are nervous, it means that you do not have the mentality to deal with the commitments of this competitive level. Too many individual actions and insisted dribbling at the end of the game show little research of others and the desire to become the Saviour of the game. “I Excited? There are no emotions, “said Cassano. Buffon and Pirlo would not statements of this type even though they are accustomed to games so important.  A the contrary the emotional charge as a team has been absent. The tension the team feels before going into the field, pushing the commitment beyond thefatigue and trouble because you feel ready. The emotions permit to raise the threshold of physical and mental fatigue. In the words of a famous African saying: every morning, no matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle, the important thing is that you begin to run.

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Spain: the fall of Gods

Published on June 19, 2014 in Calcio and Stress. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It ‘s always hard to understand when it’s finished and even Spain has complied with this rule. The result of this team unawareness, that has dominated the world of football over the last 6 years, has been to lose at the world cup the two first matches against Netherlands and Chile, and in the seven goals conceded. Maurizio Crosetti in the newspaper La Repubblica to explain what happened uses the metaphor of the dinosaurs, “This is a geological era that ends … Everyone will say: there was Spain, was the mistress of the universe until one night he fell died as the dinosaurs. So monstrous, so fragile.” The game of  thousand assists no longer worked without the intensity and speed. Features that are lost not only to physical exhaustion but also for loss of the will, the desire to continue to be what you have been up to a minute before. When it does not happen, the player continue to play automatically but they have lost that mental spark allowing them to hide the ball to the opponents and hitting when they wanted. Spain has been in the field and started playing in the usual way, by memory, but lost the ball they were not able to take it, because the others were getting faster and combative. Losing the ball resulted in the players only frustration of those who did not understand how it was possible, instead given agonistic anger because their head had exhausted any kind of reaction. The sports competition is tough and it does not leave time for those who does not get up quickly after falling out and for respect of the match the opponents do not give time to recover rather they insist to chew out you until the end of the game. To make errors is physiological, everyone knows that it’s part of the game; not be ready to bounce back immediately instead is a big problem and Spain fell disastrously into this trap and lost. Also, I think that Del Bosque has called up for the World Cup players based on the principle that the team that won does not change, with the addition of the positive feeling will have for these players. This theme relates to the role of the coach is certainly not easy to deal with and now it would be too easy to make him the scapegoat. Guardiola  after winning everything and so repetitively with Barcelona left the team because he was exausted but perhaps also for the awareness of having reached a peak of successes hardly repeatable. Del Bosque has instead accepted the challenge to continue, after winning two consecutive European championships and one world cup,  trying to reach an almost impossible task but greatest if he could: on what foundation based its decision? Perhaps we’ll never know anyway but hat for having dared so much.

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