But you keep insulting anyway. Gary Neville goes to great lengths to say what "Mental Strength" does without saying what IT is. Can you train it. Does it come with experience (in which case is Messi bad at it)? Is it unbeatable (Once you have supreme mental strength should every other team just give up)? As I said, I don't believe it. The article might just as well say, "Pray hard and put your faith in God" instead of "Mental Toughness" and been just the same.
He was a top athlete who played at the very highest level. He also gave examples of players he saw as being mentally strong, these players were often leaders. If he says you need to be mentally tough at the highest level, why would you disbelieve him ? Its not just football, you hear it said about lots of sports people, Djokovic the tennis player from what I hear added mental toughness to his game, he believes he is unbeatable, other tennis players the commentators don't think are mentally tough - do not win when they should win, they cannot handle the pressure. Andy Murray hired Ivan Lendl to be his coach because he knows how to win, he knows how to coach Murray through tough periods that he will inevitably face against Nadal, Djokovic and Federer. You hear commentators and team managers in F1 talk about mental toughness of drivers. Its all about mental toughness. Fragile sports people crumble under pressure.
Well this is where I think there is a lot of nonsense written, even by top sportspeople. If you have reached the top level at any sport these days, you are already mentally tough. When you are playing at the top level you have a "comfort zone" that you play in, where you feel confident that you can win. If your opponent plays well enough to push you out of that comfort zone then you start to make mistakes. That is why you crumble "under pressure", not because of any mental quality. I'm sorry, you can believe in this magical ability called mental toughness, but I can't say I have ever seen it, or feel it necessary to believe in it. It all seems a bit crazy to me, why bother training if you can go to the witch doctor and get some mental toughness instead?
Because mental toughness - as Gary Neville wrote - helped him to get over his mistakes quickly, put them behind him and not wallow in pity. He shrugged it off and started a new day. how many of our players are said to be "confidence players" ? If they were mentally tough - they wouldn't be confidence players.
TT - so when soldiers, spies etc are trained to resist torture and disorientation - that is NOT mental training - ie developing mental strength?
The biggest form of trolling I see is people who just dont agree with someone and so immedietly post that they are a troll. Does my head in. Its a complete insult. It is basically make a false and slanderous comment as being a proper troll is a bad thing to be.
No that's just showing mental weakness Gary Neville is 100% correct. When mental weakness enters your game, you start over thinking, getting nervous and start making mistakes. We've seen it with football players on the penalty spot, skying a shot when they would normally place it in the corner. Getting back with Arsenal, we lack the neccessary mental strength to win the title, end of. We can have the skills and ability in the world but if we can't focus that throughout a whole season, especially when it gets tough, you can't win. Manure has high levels of mental toughness and i can't remember any time when they've capitulated like other teams. This season their current team isn't the best on paper, most of their defenders have been injured, they lack creativity in midfield and they've had to resort to playing 2 OAPs in the team. Despite all this and the increase in competition from Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs, they are still top. Now that is mental toughness!
There are whole degrees in sports phsycology that covers this kind of thing. Gary Neville is probably not doing the academics a favour by describing "Mental Toughness" it in the way he has in this article. Not sure he would pass the course. I can go along with the idea that there is "something" that makes players less prone to mistakes, but I think you are doing coaches a disservice if you don't think they are training their players to eliminate this kind of mistake, or that there is a single over-riding feature associated with a player that makes them more or less mistake-prone. What Gary Neville did in his article was define "Mental Toughness" based on what it does, not how it works. Its like if I said: Planes fly because of magic. Magic is what stops planes from falling from the sky and keeps them up. Teams win games due to mental toughness. Mental Toughness makes teams win games because players don't crumble under pressure and make mistakes. No attempt is made to reason why there isn't something more tangible involved.
Though Neville was inside the dressing room and playing for the most successful side in British club football history. I'd take his view on "what" over a sports psychologist view on "why" any day. He really doesn't need to describe the reasons why, just that there is such an effect. I don't think it will ever be dissected to the point we have a play book on what to do to be mentally tough. I thought what he was saying was very insightful, and resonates with some of this issues our club has to overcome.
Well this is why I was a little disappointed with the article to tell you the truth. It seemed to focus on this (for want of a better word) magical quality, without really giving any insight into how it could be acquired or what it consisted of, only what having it or not having it meant.
Yes but the point is that it cannot be explained (or at least it is extremely difficult and somewhat subjective). It's just the way things are (at least if you believe Neville, which I do). There are more simple things to figure out in football and life in general than 'what makes someone mentally tough'.
But according to him, this is what you need to win. This is the most important thing you need at this time of the year. Who needs a defensive coach, all you need is mental toughness. Maybe if we just beat the players about their heads more, it would toughen them up!
I am not sure what you are trying to argue? If Neville says 'it's' the most important thing at this time of year then I believe him. He has been there and done it several times.
Yes - they of course have the talent and technique, but what sets them apart is their mental strength.
Not arguing about anything. Just seeing if there was anything more than blind faith behind you accepting Neville's article.
The interesting thing with Woods is he seemed to lose it and then (perhaps) regained it. So, it comes and goes?
That's a valid point and a good observation of the psychological effect that confidence has on performance. Winning teams will tell you that the effect from winning games gives you belief that you can win again and again, it manifests as a self fulfililng prophecy that perpetuates it's validity by being reinforced with each win. . . that is, until you lose, which eventually happens. It's then that the real debate about mental toughness occurs. It's the ability to understand that even when you believe that everything is going against you, that you trust your abilities to guide you back on track and lift you. Applying that philosophy in the pressure cooker of the premier league is a quality that's essential for any group of players to make it at the top level
Hmmm, now let me see... Didn't Gary Neville and his team actually exhibit a tendency to win when it mattered? Don't all the top sportsmen time and time again find a way to win and raise their games under pressure. Isn't this something we witness in life almost every day? Yes, so a little more than just Neville saying it?
Wow - I didn't realise we were actually going to get into trying to describe what mental strength is! We have some real experts on here.
