THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ''TEAM TALK''

For a fan who has checked through this club fixtures and noticed that his beloved team has a game at the weekend and has followed the team's preparation and progress for the game through the various sports media cannot help but battle with the anxiety that comes with every game his team plays not minding if his team are the favourite or not.
But in reality the result of every game relies heavily on a single factor which i will be dwelling on today'' The Psychology of Team Talks''

What is Team Talk?
Team Talk is a conferencing system which enables a group of people to collaborate and share information. Every member of the group can communicate but its usually headed by the Manager of the football Team.

Who Delivers a Team Talk?
team talks are usually delivered by the club Manager or the coach as known in most countries, but it can also be delivered by the club president, the captain of the team and in some cases by the most experienced player in the team.

  Team talks are affected by some factors which include the following;
1. Player performance
2. Player morale/squad morale
3. player personality/Squad personality
4. Home / Away
5. Linked with factors such as pre match odds
6. Whether the opponent is your Rival
7. Whether the target player is a substitute brought on.

Team Talks are divided into three. Namely; Pre match, Half time and post match Team talks.

Pre match team talk.

Pre match team Talks are relatively straight forward and has less effect than the half time team talk. Pre match team talk generally only need to take into account factors 2,4,5 and 6.

Half time team talk.

For the fan who has sat through the first 45 minutes of a football match and watched his side play abysmally, it can often be a deeply frustrating and emotional time. He may have witnessed his side concede a goal or more, be playing like strangers who only met for the first time in the car park an hour before kick-off, or whose side are playing so badly that they may as well have stayed in bed!

However one can still draw comfort from the peep of the half-time whistle, for it is now time for the manager to metaphorically speaking, get his hands on the players and really earn his corn!

The half-time period in a game tends to create an emotional experience amongst the players and the coach/manager. At half-time the outcome of the game is yet to be decided. The interval is only around 15 minutes in duration, and is the only direct opportunity the coach will have to speak to all the players and to influence the second-half performance and result.

Above all, as a fan there's the hope that the manager is delivering an 'epic' half-time team talk.
Hundreds of matches have been turned around by this. This usually makes the difference between a defeat, a draw and a win. It has also been the differentiating factor between an average manager and a world class manager.
Half time team talks takes into account almost all factors 1,2,3,4,5 and 7.

Perhaps a manager might consider using famous motivational quote/speeches in an effort to rally his troops such as one of the following:

"I've learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it." (Andy Rooney, born 1919, American journalist, author and TV correspondent).

"The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That's real glory!" (Vince Lombardi, 1913-1970, an American football coach)

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do........" (Mark Twain 1835-1910, American author and commentator).

"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room." (Dame Anita Roddick, 1942-2007, British businesswoman)

"Fear cannot be without hope, nor hope without fear." (Benedict Spinoza, also known as Baruch, 1632-77, Jewish born Dutch philosopher and theologian).

"I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you'll win-if you don't you won't." (Bruce Jenner, born 1949, is a former U.S. track and field athlete).

"Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude towards that fact. How you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you deal with it actually. On the other hand, a confident and optimistic thought pattern can overcome or modify the fact altogether." (Norman Vincent Peale, 1898-1993, author and protestant minister).

"Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that." (Bill Shankly, 1913-1981, one of Britain's most successful and respected football managers).

Most world class manager has used this Half Time team talk to their team's advantage and turned a game to their favour. Below is Sir Alex half time team talk during the champions league final against Bayern in 1999.

“At the end of this game, the European Cup will be only six feet away from you and you’ll not even able to touch it if we lose. And for many of you that will be the closest you will ever get. Don’t you dare come back in here without giving your all.”
(Half time talk during the 1999 European Cup Final)
                 


Football, in particular, is a game with many psychological demands, such as confidence, motivation and concentration, and these demands can be influenced by the situation in the game at half-time.

The main goal of the coach during the half-time interval is to influence positively the second-half performance as much as possible.

Castigation can be risky. Hull City manager Phil Brown is still remembered for an ill-judged decision to deliver his team talk on the City of Manchester pitch (below) when the Tigers were losing 4-0 against Manchester City in December 2008. Embarrassed and showing empathy for the travelling Hull fans, manager Brown reacted by leading his Tigers towards their own support at the break, ordering his troops to sit down in front of their own fans, while the boss began his public finger-wagging and shouting exercise. His players, visibly mortified, went on to lose the game 5-1, and won just one more game that season!
A key element of a successful half-time talk is communication. This is a two-way process that consists of giving and receiving information. Coaches can learn a lot about the development of the game at half-time by listening and asking the members of the team questions to prompt a two-way discussion. However, while coaches are typically good at talking, being in charge and giving instructions, they are often poor listeners.

It is also important to note that communication is not only verbal. As early as the late 1960s, research in communication had indicated that non-verbal behaviour (i.e body language) plays an important role in communication. Researchers have determined that just 7% of what we communicate is the result of the words that we use or the content of our communication; 38% of our communication to others is a result of our verbal behaviour, which includes tone of voice, timbre, tempo and volume; and 55% of our communication to others is a result of our non-verbal communication, our body posture, breathing, skin colour and our movement.
Saying the right things: that's the difficulty. "We live on a volcano," said Arsène Wenger in December 2009, describing how a group of players are equally likely to respond negatively as positively to a telling-off.

Alex Ferguson is famous for his half-time scolds – admonishment immortally named by Mark Hughes "the hairdryer treatment"

Logic suggests that if you get a bollocking you want to do better because you don't want another one. But often that isn't the case. A telling-off can lower a player's confidence, and it is hard to be motivated when confidence is low. There is evidence that suggests feeling appreciated – feeling that those around you have pride and faith in you – is the most important thing.
The third is the Post match Team Talk.
post match team talks is as straight forward as the pre match team talk. The goal here is to keep morale up without ignoring poor performances. Here the player rating is the key factor.

So in a game as emotional as football Team Talks play a very important role in obtaining results in a game and also has an effect on the players and a team in general for the whole season.

As we enter into another weekend of football, Lets see which Team and manager will get their ''Team Talk'' right.