Visualisation and goal-setting in footballers

Abstract

The footballer needs to utilise useful psychological tools along his/her sports career. The avatars footballers need to overcome when facing their tasks make them resort, in many occasions, to the search and use of psychological techniques, such as visualisation or goal-setting, which are going to influence their sports performance. The aim of this study is to analyse to what extent these psychological techniques of visualisation and goal-setting are used in footballers in terms of how they are applied and when they are used. The sample is made up of 25 footballers who play in the tenth group of the third division of the Spanish Football League. For the analysis of the use of visualisation and goal-setting, several scales from Psychological Characteristics Questionnaire related to Sports Performance (CPRD) as well as from LOEHR Psychological Sports Performance Inventory have been used. Some of the conclusions reached are that almost the entire team mentally trains to improve their performances, that this is done with clarity and that implementation proves to be easy. Moreover, more than half of the team uses the goal-setting technique, whose achivement depends on oneself.