Week 1 Athlete Assessment

Athlete Z

Finally bumped in to the boy! It was a pleasure to meet the young boy and get to know a little about him before we start assessing him. Athlete Z we will call him, he is just at a tender age of 18 still learning his trade and far from his peak, so we do expect weaknesses. Athlete Z plays football at a decent level, Semi Professional to be precise. The team he plays for is Nelson Football Club where he is an attacking midfielder who operates behind the striker or even on the wing, where he trains two times a week and plays matches once. Along with this Athlete Z remains dedicated with his education at college and also remains a key influential figure at his college team. Here he plays a match once a week and trains once a week too. This takes up most of his busy week as he is developing as well as enjoying his football season. 
Every sport brings its fair share of pressures and for Athlete Z it is something he thrives off, not only the pressure of winning in big games but also the pressure on the side by his ever demanding farther. It must be difficult at an age where the youth are accustomed to the parties and night outs to remain dedicated nearly every day of the week for the whole season with the weight of pressure from on lookers as well as the physical demands of the body. Psychologically this is a battle on its own says Athlete Z, he admits to the pressure as well as the pain from the previous days training to being physically ready for the next days match which does take a colossal amount of psychological toughness. 

Already you can sense the high levels of motivation but to gather all the other information of his psychological demands I have decided to put Athlete Z through a series of Tests and Questionnaires where then we will get a larger glimpse of where Athlete Z is currently at. After evaluating the results attained by the Athlete I will create a SWOT Analysis to show the strengths he possess and the weaknesses he must improve on and how he will do just that.  

Athlete Z Performance Profile Wheel

The Performance Profile Wheel is out of 10. Athlete Z took part in this and came out with the results shown above. Athlete Z believes he is highly focused as he scored an impressive 8 out of 10 which shows he is not easily distracted and is committed. Along with this he scored 9 out of 10 on concentration which once again outlines his determination on the football pitch and training ground. However, on the belief section he scored a mere 6 out of 12 which shows he lacks belief in his abilities, this could be down to the pressure that is on his shoulders. This links well with his confidence score where he scored a lower score of 5 out of 12, this needs to be worked on.

Assessing Sport Psychological Skills 
Athlete Z came out with 5 out of 12 on 'Peaking Under Pressure' which is slightly low which shows some levels of anxiety he possesses which halt his performances due to cracking under pressure.
Athlete Z scores another 5 out of 12 on 'freedom for Worry' which once again shows his anxiety levels are low due to the fact that the athlete doesn't want to perform badly as he is afraid of what people will think of him and his performance.
Athlete Z however scored 8 out of 12 on 'Coach-ability' this shows the athlete is open to learn on the training ground and better himself at everything even the weaknesses mentioned above. You can see the commitment.

The Sport Motivation Scale
After putting Athlete Z through the sport motivation scale questionnaire we have found out that the athlete is intrinsically motivated. The athlete scored highly as the athlete admits to learn more and know more about the strategies his sport possesses and also wants to learn new ways of becoming a better player. As well as this, the athlete has a sixth sense for accomplishment as he wants to be the best and be at the top of his game all the time. In addition, Athlete Z is slightly extrinsically motivated too as he scored well on the external regulation questions. This clearly indicates that he regards himself happily as a sportsman and his happy to show people he is just that which is good as he is not shying away from who he really is, these results show his passion and dedication towards his sport.

Moving on...
Now that we have got to know a little more about this footballer we can move on to the SWOT Analysis to identify his strengths and weaknesses and exactly how we can transform his negatives to positives.

Below is a SWOT Analysis on Athlete Z

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths-

• Highly focused
• Motivated
• High levels of concentration
• Willing to learn
• Wants to succeed
• Passionate
• Committed
• Dedicated

Weaknesses-

• Belief
• Confidence
• Pressure
• Anxiety

Opportunities-

Belief- The only way Athlete Z can change this from being a weaknesses to a strength is by looking back at him previous matches where he has played well and start to say to himself that that's how good he is and that's how good he just is on his day. This is the only way for Athlete Z to believe in himself, he must look back at his games and see how well he plays and start to think and say to himself that he is the best.

Confidence- Athlete Z will only grow in confidence if he does the above, that is believe in his abilities. As his belief grows he will start to play better on the pitch and score goals and help his teams. This will enable Athlete Z to grow in confidence as one goal can really boost confidence, and this can happen if the above happens and that is believing in his abilities. This will work wonders on the confidence of the Athlete.

Pressure- Athlete Z is at a young age where he is learning his trade, there is pressure from managers and family, but the Athlete needs to turn this pressure to positive pressure and thrive off it. He shouldn't be worried about the pressure and should just go out and play to his capabilities. He is still young and still learning, he will learn from mistakes. So I believe strongly Athlete Z mustn't look in to this and just pay attention on the game and play with enjoyment and not pay attention to this, this is the only way pressure can be can be overcome.

Anxiety- This links well with pressure, too much anxiety can effect performance negatively, but it is good to have some sort of anxiety. The only opportunity that can overcome anxiety is relaxation. Athlete Z must relax before matches and play freely with not a care in the world. He must believe in himself and his abilities and step out on to the pitch and play his game and help his team to win every match.

Threats-

The only threat that can stop Athlete Z from improving on his weaknesses is his mind. Only Athlete Z can control what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. It is massively up to him on what he really wants, will he settle for second place due to the lack of belief and confidence in himself amidst they huge array of attributes he possesses that combines to form his talent, or to be number one and get to the highest level possible knowing he overcame the battle with his mind. That is really only for Athlete Z to battle with. It will take a substantial amount of effort and courage to overcome his weaknesses and it is likely to take time but it can only happen through reassurance from his close ones and his peers. Only then will Athlete Z have that belief to master his pressures and let his feet do the talking when playing football.


There you have it! It was a pleasure to talk to and get to know Athlete Z. But this isn't it! For the next 6 weeks I will be posting blogs once a week to keep you up to date with how he psychological training is going each week. Yes that's right, there is more to come on Athlete Z and you will know all about it.

Keep an eye out for the next post!

Obeid Soge.