Girls Football: How to deal with setbacks
Young girls across Dubai will face many setbacks during their football journey, and this can start from a young age. At Alliance Football Club, Dubai, we aim to help female football players with their confidence, self-esteem, mindset, and outlook on not only their skills, but their lives off the pitch too.
Whether it’s minor or majorsetbacks, girls’ football can be impacted in ways that seep intothe players’ lives in some way. How they bounce back and recover from minor or major setbacks teaches them many life lessons along the way, and can show female footballers that anything is possible with hard work and determination. As girls football grows significantly across Dubai, with more and more girls joining academies each week, and competition getting tougher, setbacks will bea natural factor all players. Therefore, it’s vital that parents and coaches consider this aspect of the game when being a part of the football world. What a coach may describe as a minor setback may feel like a major setback to a player. As their emotions are heightened, as they are the ones playing, parents and coaches must supportplayers in guiding them on how to recover from a setback, no matter how big or small. Setbacks may include things like;injury or absence from training, or more simpler things like making a mistake and conceding a goal, or even missing a shot in a match.
Each player will respond differently to different actionsand outcomes, and the way they respond will correlate withtheir ability to bounce back. Bounding back from a set-back demonstrates the mindset an individual has, and their ability to see past thenegatives and focus on the positives. It also shows those who may have difficulties in finding the positives in negative situations, and the extra support they may need to see beyond the initial setback. Bouncing back does not come down to physical fitness or how talented a player is, it is all down to mindset. Guiding players to focus on the controllables, instead of the things they cannot control, will help toencourageyoung players to work towards adopting a more positive mindset. Focusing on the things out of our control is a natural reaction to negative events that ensue, in an
attempt to blame someone else or find an excuse for the negative occurrence, rather than taking ownership of yourown mistake. Focusing on things out of our control, has a negative long-term effect. Players can start to feel that they are more out of control during training and matches, especiallywhen things are going wrong. Whereas, if a player is able to forget about the things not in their control, and focus solely on things that are in their control–like themselves-thenthey’re able to have better focus during performance.This habit of dealing with setbacks in a healthy “big picture” type of way will lead to players building a naturalpositive mindset,enabling them to deal with setbacks in a much better way.
Effective communication is also vital in dealing with setbacks in youth football. Allowing players the opportunity to talk openly, with coaches and team mates may prevent them from feeling down about a possible setback. This is something we highly encourage and nurture at Alliance Football Club, Dubai. The sooner a coach knows about what the player believes to be a setback, the sooner they can encourage positive thinking and guide them towards dealing with the set-back in a positive way rather than dealing with it on their own away from football. Also, allowing team mates to discuss the setbacks they are facing as a team, positively influences individuals and teaches them how to deal with it individuallywhen they may not have team mates around. Knowing their football sessions are safe places to learn, make mistakes and come back from failures, will only encourage young female playersto be stronger and more confident when dealing with setbacks.
Lastly, finding solutions to setbacks can also give players a technique to deal with such occurrences. Discussing setbacks with team mates and coaches opens up a platform to share ideas of how to possibly prevent the mistakes from happening, so that solutions can be discussed and tried. Without having thisopen platform to talk, it becomes more difficult to implement and share new ideas or ways of bouncing back from negative events. Therefore, a combination of thinking positively, controlling the controllables, communicating with coaches and team mates, and also finding solutions,leaves young girls in footballwith the best possible opportunities and waysof confidentlyrecovering from anysetbacks.
