Role of Psychological Preparation in Team Cohesion and Success of Student Soccer Teams

The purpose of this work is to investigate the role of psychological preparation in team cohesion and success of the student soccer teams. The objective isto make the student teams as successful as possible. In the present work, two questionnaires are used: one by Thomas (1999) in order to assess the mental fitness, and the second one by Karen (1985) in order to measure the group cohesion and success. The test results obtained show that there is a direct relationship between the team cohesion and the psychological skills. Based on the findings, the coaches should use the skills of the two- and four-factor hierarchical models of Calot and Cardenoso's self-talk and Lu Vygotsky's positive inner speech, S.T.U.C.K (stop, self-talk, output, attention and success) emotion control, verbal encouragement, mental imagery, mental review, and Benson and Jacobsen relaxation.

The psychological preparation along with the physical training plays an important role in increasing the performance of an athlete so that it helps him/her to have a better team cohesion, and perform sports activities in a more desirable way, and ultimately, achieve more success. The purpose of the present work was to investigate the role of the psychological preparation in team cohesion and success of the student soccer teams.

The research method was descriptive-correlation, which was done by the field method. The statistical population of this work included all the football players participating in the national student championship (N = 165), and finally, 142 people were selected as the statistical sample of the work. In the present work, two questionnaires were used: one by Thomas (1999) in order to assess the mental fitness, and the second one by Karen (1985) in order to measure group cohesion and success. The data was analyzed using the ANOVA test, and the Pearson correlation coefficient and the Bonferroni post hoc test were used to examine the differences between the sub-scales.

The results obtained showed that there were significant differences in the sub-scales of the psychological preparation, self-talk (Sig = 0.001, F = 6.58), subjective imagery (Sig = 0.038, F = 5.37), emotional control (Sig = 0.016, F = 4.62), and level of relaxation (Sig = 0.01, F = 5.60) between the successful and unsuccessful teams. However, in the other sub-scales, there was no significant difference. Also, there was a significant difference between the successful and the less successful teams only in the sub-scales of self-talk (F = 6.58, F = 0.001) and mental imagery (F = 6.71, Sig = 0.004). The test results also showed that although there was no significant relationship between some sub-scales of the psychological skill and team cohesion, but finally, a direct relationship was observed between the team cohesion and the emotional control skills (R = 0.19). Based on the findings of the present work, which showed the role and effect of the sub-scale of mental skills in strengthening and maintaining team cohesion, and ultimately, the success of teams, the coaches should improve and develop the level of mental fitness of the athletes, which ultimately leads to an improved performance. They can use the skills of the two- and four-factor hierarchical model models of Calot and Cardenoso's self-talk and Lu Vygotsky's positive inner speech, S.T.U.C.K emotion control, verbal encouragement, mental imagery, mental review, and Benson and Jacobsen relaxation.