One Goal: The Mindset of Winning Soccer Teams

Description

In football, perhaps more than any other sport, success hinges on team performance rather than individual play. As coaches are well aware, inspiring a group of players to perform as a finely tuned, coordinated unit is an on-going challenge. While several factors can interfere with cohesion and flow of the team, no previously published work has specifically addressed how to identify, prevent and overcome such problems. One Goal is arranged sequentially, providing invaluable insights on the various challenges facing coaches when faced with moulding a set of individuals into a winning team.

Bill Beswick is a leader in the field of applied sport psychology, internationally renowned for his work with elite soccer players and teams. After earning a master's degree he worked as head coach of England's gold-medal-winning basketball team at the Commonwealth Games. Beswick became the first full-time performance psychologist in English professional soccer. Beswick has worked at Manchester United, Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the English Premier League and FC Twente in the Dutch Eredivisie. He has been a contributor to UEFA Pro Licence award courses for European football associations. He has international experience with the England U18 and U21 squads and as team psychologist with the English senior men's national team. He is currently a consulting performance psychologist with Derby County FC in the English Championship Division, the English men's rugby team and the British Olympic swimming team, along with advising athletic programs in the United States, including the one at Clemson University. Beswick's book Focused for Soccer (Human Kinetics, 2001) is now in its second edition and is regarded as one of the best guides ever on psychology of performance in the sport.