Yes apparently you are an expert on coaching, psychology, and finance - ... in fact anything you get into a debate on
Maybe. He has lost a couple of leads in tournaments (I think I am right in saying) which he had never done before his decline. So what about Ian Baker Finch. Won an open and then crumbled to a club player. Or David Duval? World number one major winner and hero, to zero in a year. Interesting stuff.
Ok you have convinced us all - there is no such thing as mental strength and Gary Neville doesn't know what he is talking about
I think if you saw my finances, I couldn't claim that. Never claimed psychology, I dont know how to spell it. Coaching/refereeing, well, I've done the courses, I have some experience.
Aren't you the "coach" that tells his kids team not to make runs behind the defence because the lino might call them offside ?
Not sure what this debate is dragging onto. Of course, a kind of mental toughness exists in everyone and there are different forms of it. Yes, we all have different characters and have our own behavioural problems to go with it eg. Balotelli with his silly tantrums. But when you are a sportsman, it's when you can hold your nerve and focus on the task at hand, which is the difference between winning and almost winning. Piskie references winning games as boosting a teams morale and performance. This is partly it and i've been advocating Arsenal winning anything, even if it means going all out and winning the Carling cup. Sometimes you need to win something to get the feeling of winning. You learn something by doing it, not just think you're going to do it and lose out. I think that Carling cup loss against Birmingham has been detrimental to our development as a team, to lose against a clearly inferior team has only set us back. On a positive swing, i can see some strong characters emerging in our squad - Chesney, Wilshere, Mertz, Vermaelen, Frimpong, OXO...Hopefully this will be the start of something special...
I don't get what tangible evidence Toledo is looking for. An example of Tiger Woods was made, I can throw in Lewis Hamilton last season - he was mentally weak and admitted as much. He said his head was all over the place due to his personal life - hence the erratic nature of most of his drives. He says he is in a much better place now. From what Neville says I can say that Mental Toughness helped him become a more consistent performer because, when he made a mistake he told himself its ok, forget about it, move on, you are better than that. Thats not magic or hoodoo, its common sense. If you dwell on negatives it affects you in life and in some cases can lead to suicide. Once you have the mindset that making a mistake isn't the end of the world, you gain in confidence to do the things you want to do - without fear. This in turn will lead to being difficult to beat if you are focusing on what makes you good as opposed to what makes you bad. You are afraid of heights but you have to walk along a ledge high up as a matter of life or death. Those mentally tougher will overcome that fear, they will tell themselves they won't fall or simply "don't look down".
It's all about mentality. As someone who has competeted in MMA I can attest to that. found a good quote(combat sports realted but still applicable...) What allows one person or team to come through against a physically better opponent on a given day? "The best fighter never wins, it's always the guy who fights the best," says applied sports psychologist Brian Cain, noting that one of his clients, Georges St. Pierre, verbalized the same thing coming into his match up against Thiago Alves at UFC 100. And according to Cain, the greatest factor in who fights the best may not reside in one's brawn, but rather their mind, especially come game day. Rich Franklin, a former UFC middleweight champion and client of Cain's agrees, noting that "training for a fight is about 90% physical and 10% mental, yet when you enter the octagon it becomes about 90% mental and 10% physical because all of the physical preparation is done."
As an example of what the mental side of the game can do, I will quote your example of Balotelli, he was having a poor game, then had his little tantrum where he felt aggrieved, and so he proved his worth by going it alone and belting his goal in, looked like he was trying to prove a point to me, what was going on in his mind there? Harnessing that kind of determination can certainly help build mental strengh.
Players like Balotelli are a rare breed. They have personality defects but have so much self belief, talent and confidence that it can override everything. Saying that, destructive behaviour can be more harmful to others. Take Mike Tyson for example, when he was with Cus D'Amato, he was disciplined and focussed but when he passed away, his destuctive personality surfaced and destroyed his career inside and outside the ring. Getting back to Balotelli, he does need to cut out his childishness and focus on developing his game.
I didn't mean Balotelli was mentally strong by the way as clearly he is off his box (but very talented). However clearly he decided to show them what he could do after he was snubbed at the free kick demonstrating what effect the mind can have over the actions.
He isn't mentally strong in some ways but in big match situations, he will produce the goods, as you showed in your example. I remember in a Spurs game this season where he horse kicked Parker on the floor but then ended the game with a match winning performance!
Some players play better when they are on the edge, they like to get wound up by the opposition because it brings out the best in them. I understand how that works but I could never be like that, it'd zap all my energy.
This is more in line with what I feel, and it may have been what Gary Neville was trying to say in his article, but I like the way you wrote it better. The way Neville wrote it, it was much more like a quality you had, or you didn't have, as opposed to talking about mental execution of a game plan, or training, which is something every athlete or sportsperson needs to be able to do, although some are better at it than others. I meet coaches all the time, that complain about their teams looking good in training, but then when they go out on the pitch during a game they are a shambles and seem to forget everything they have done in training. It doesn't happen every time though, so you have to start thinking that there are things that happen or that the other team does to "throw you off your game". For a coach, the challenge is working out whether you are falling behind because of a failure to execute, or because your tactics are not working and need changing. Talking about playing on the edge, I think every player plays better when they get charged up and get an adrenaline rush. The only problem with an adrenaline rush is that: 1. It can sometimes cloud the brain and make you lose focus, you get enhanced physical performance, but worse mental focus. 2. What goes up must come down. You tend to get a corresponding low, after the rush. Football being a long game means that charging up the team before the game can lead to a great first 15 minutes followed by crap.
Toledo - what Neville says is he let a bad game affect the rest of his performances that season, so it is clear he didn't have that mental strength at first. Once he got it he became a different player.
I understand that and what I am saying is that saying "Mental Strength" is something that you either have, or dont have, is a load of crock! I expect to see a bottle of Gary Neville snake oil, to give you mental strength coming onto the market soon. Players have it in degrees and whether you have enough to win is dependant on the opposition, your training and a whole host of other factors. Manchester United did not win merely becase the great Gary Neville acquired mental strength, although SAF may have realized that if he convinced the poor dumb sap that he had this magical quality, he would play better!
